


A Solid Foundation

by melonbutterfly



Series: A Solid Foundation [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Political Animals
Genre: Caretaking, Communication, Established Relationship, Family Issues, Injury Recovery, M/M, Meet the Friends, No Bucky Barnes, Past Drug Addiction, Press and Tabloids, Public Relations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-03 14:57:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 61,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is going great in TJ's life. He and Steve have been together for six months, his family knows and is more or less supportive, and he and Steve are starting to seriously think about how to approach making their relationship public. Things are good.</p><p>And then Steve sends TJ a text with a codeword, and next thing TJ knows Steve is on TV, rounded up by heavily armed men in broad daylight, in the middle of DC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Muirnín

**Author's Note:**

> Check out this gorgeous playlist derryday made for this verse!

TJ is in the tub when his phone pings an incoming message. For a moment he considers getting it, but then decides that it can wait for another twenty minutes. The water has the perfect temperature right now, hot enough to relax his muscles after his workout, the peppermint scent at once both soothing and invigorating. He's too relaxed to let his phone stress him. Especially since he got a new number three days ago it can only be Steve or his family, and while he'd like to hear from Steve, he's probably still at work. If he got back he either texted to let TJ know that he's on his way or that he's too knackered and is spending the night at his place: neither something TJ needs to know right away. If it were important, Steve would have called. Same goes for his family.

So he sighs and sinks further down into the water until it laps at his ears, soaks the back of his head. He feels _good_. Successful workout, and earlier today he actually sort of finished that song he was composing. Maybe. Tomorrow he might start fiddling with it again, but he feels good about it right now, and that's rare enough. He even recorded an excerpt and sent it to Steve, which would have felt like a huge step yesterday, but today actually was almost easy.

Another factor contributing to his generally good mood is the fact that TJ hasn't heard from any of his "friends" in three days. Of course he hasn't; not since he got a new number, and they're the reason he got it in the first place. It had been a mistake giving Shane his new number when he met him at that Starbucks two months ago; he should have known better. But, really. He'd figured he doesn't have to go to the parties, he can just meet with Shane at Starbucks again, talk some. Back when – half a year ago at the time, though it had felt much longer – they'd been pretty good friends actually, or so he'd thought.

Well. Turns out he and Shane don't have much to say to each other when they aren't drunk or high or talking about screwing or screwing. But neither Shane nor any of the people (which seems like _everyone_ ) Shane gave TJ's number to were ready to accept that TJ is out of the scene. Maybe in a year he can go to a club without worrying, but right now TJ just doesn't want to risk it yet. Not that he thinks he'll be seriously tempted, but... life entirely sober is hard. Facing his issues and problems is harder. Maybe the first party he attends nothing will happen. Maybe not the next one – and if there is a first, there'll be a second – nothing will either. Then he'll get tipsy, and regret it, then do it again, then get drunk, and then... well. TJ doesn't trust himself enough to throw himself head-first into that kind of situation.

And there goes his relaxed mood. And the water isn't perfectly hot anymore either; he might as well just get out.

Twenty minutes later, once he's clean and moisturized and washed the body lotion off his hands, he grabs his phone and swipes it open. The text he got is from an unknown number, just three words: _muirnín, go home._

For three seconds TJ is nonplussed, and then he remembers... muirnín. One of the code words, the ones Steve told him he'd use if he couldn't talk or explain but when he needed TJ to do exactly what he told him. They practiced them, in writing and in hearing, so TJ would recognize them.

Go home? He _is_ home. Maybe Steve-

No, fuck. Steve wouldn't use this unless he's in danger – unless he thinks _TJ_ is in danger. In enough danger that a gated community won't be enough protection, apparently, because he seems to be telling TJ to go to his mum's highly secured place. What the hell is going on? More importantly, is Steve okay? Why isn't he using his own number?

Shit, TJ needs to _go._

He scrambles to get into clothes, briefly considers packing but then discards that idea. He already wasted enough time when he didn't read the text right away. Should he take his phone? Steve has his mum's house number, and all his family's mobile numbers, simply by virtue of the fact that he has a photographic memory and it might prove useful one day. Steve didn't use his own phone to text TJ so something's wrong with his phone; is it bugged? What if TJ's phone is bugged as well?

No, wait. He shouldn't get ahead of himself; he got the phone three days ago, along with his new number. If it were a danger, Steve would have mentioned that.

He takes the damn phone. But he doesn't take his wallet, instead just shoves his driver's license into his pocket and then takes the keys of his other car, the one he hasn't used in months because it's his summer car and it stayed in his mom's garage until TJ moved into his house two months ago. If his car is bugged, it's probably the other one that he's been using since he got out of the hospital.

Fuck. This secret agent spy stuff... it's not that TJ didn't take Steve serious when Steve brought up the concept of safewords, and _not_ the sex kind. (TJ had been the one to bring those up, a couple of days after that conversation because he figured better safe than sorry, but sex safewords probably didn't fit into the emergency safewords conversation.) Hell, Steve is Captain America, and though TJ doesn't think about that much anymore, it's still not something he just forgets. There are things that entails, a certain danger that TJ might be in just by virtue of being Captain America's significant other, and though Steve had figured it wouldn't be a big deal until they went public, he still had sat TJ down and had a serious conversation with him a month into their relationship, and then another after Christmas. After... all that stuff with Iron Man happened, actually, and somehow TJ hasn't made that connection until just now.

Okay, but no, this isn't a kidnapping scenario. Nobody is actively threatening him; he just _might_ be in danger. It's serious enough that Steve sent him to his mum's place, with her secret service agents and highly modern security systems. TJ may live in a gated community, but his mother's house is a wholly different deal.

Stopping at a red light, TJ reads the text again. Muirnín, Gaelic for sweetheart. Steve's mother's mothertongue, that he doesn't use much because it's his second language and he's not as fluent as he wishes.

Fuck. Where _is_ Steve? What's happening? Is he okay?

He must be, to send that message. But he still could be hurt, and he must definitely be in danger, and TJ has no idea at all what's going on. Three days ago Steve had to leave suddenly for a mission; he didn't even have time to say goodbye, it had been the emergency type thing, he'd just called TJ to let him know and said it might be three, four days before he'd be back. But he hadn't seemed worried or tense, just focused, the way he gets in that situation. There have been enough emergency missions for TJ to know how Steve reacts, and there had been nothing to worry him.

Something must have happened. Something went wrong, and now Steve is in danger, the type of danger that he thinks might even fall back on TJ somehow. Which means it's not the type of danger that Steve can just shrug off, because he _is_ Captain America, after all.

Rolling to a halt in front of his mother's gate, TJ nods at the security guard and hands over his ID while the second guard does a quick check of his car. He's on the approved list so after they check him they just wave him on and let him in; anybody not in the family they'd call up for to get permission first, and a more thorough search.

Briefly TJ considers giving them some sort of warning, but what would he say? "Watch out"? That's literally their job. He has nothing concrete to say and either way, they'd ask what he knows and how, and then probably ignore him anyway. It's not as bad as before, now people in his family's environment generally treat him with indifference rather than thinly veiled, polite pity to contempt, but they still wouldn't take him serious. Doesn't he know that drugs can cause paranoia? These things build up in the body, you know.

He can't count how often strangers – he wouldn't call them well-meaning at all, even though they probably would – have given him some sort of advice to that effect.

But he's sober. Three hundred and twenty-two days and counting.

Steve wouldn't have sent him here (that's what "go home" meant, right? ...what else could it have meant?) if TJ were in danger here. And if the danger were acute and direct and of the sort that even the Vice President's security team isn't able to protect him from, Steve himself would have come, or sent someone he can trust.

Unless whatever is happening is such a big deal that he can't and that nobody was available, but if that were the case, TJ would hear something, surely. It'd be on the news or his mother would know something.

He rolls into the garage, already opening for him, and when he walks up the stairs into the front hall, a maid is waiting for him. "Miss Barrish is in her office," she informs him, would he like anything to drink?

"Tea," he requests before he can ask for anything else; coffee that would make him even more jittery, something alcoholic he shouldn't drink when in emotional turmoil. His therapist advised against it. Alcohol wasn't specifically his drug of choice, but he still liked to use it to blunt the edges and he's very aware of how easily he can slide into alcoholism, now that he's not taking anything else and has to confront himself and his issues all the time.

"TJ, darling," his mom says when he knocks on the open door and steps inside. Coming out from behind her desk, she draws him into a quick hug. "I didn't expect you. Of course I'm happy to see you, but why are you here? Is anything the matter? Did something happen with Steve?"

TJ is fairly sure that his mom probably knows better than him where Steve is right now, or at least where his mission went. Possibly. But she always asks after Steve, always uses his first name even though they've met only twice so far and they're really not that familiar. Elaine has troubles setting the politician aside, and Steve, well. Isn't overly fond of politicians.

The question is, should TJ tell her? What would he say, though? She might very well be the person to bring up the paranoia thing, nevermind that TJ has been off anything for over ten months. Even if she did believe him, it's not like there's much he could tell her anyway. Probably, she'd just look at him with that carefully neutral expression that can't hide a pinch around her mouth that means she's not telling him something uncomfortable for his own good. She often ends up saying it anyway, of course, and TJ knows that on the matter of Steve she's torn between thrilled – politician – and skeptic. After all, what would someone like Steve want with someone like TJ?

No, TJ isn't telling her anything yet, not until he knows more than that Steve is in danger and sent him here. So he shrugs, pulls up the fake smile he never gets out of practice with and says, "I haven't seen you in a while, I thought I'd come and see how you are. You said I can come over anytime."

She did say that, but with the heavy implication that she is to be his harbor in a storm, as in, when he feels like he's about to do something stupid, be it drugs or suicide attempt number three (four), he should come to her instead. He's not really been in that kind of emergency since he left the hospital, but if he were, TJ imagines he'd rather go to Steve, who, fair or not, isn't likely to acerbate his issues simply by virtue of the fact that he's entangled in so many of them.

So, the implication that he's here because he's possibly in a little bit of trouble isn't... well, it's deliberate, but TJ knows his mom won't worry. He doesn't look bad, he knows this, he slept well and worked out and just had a nice, relaxing bath; he eats and treats his body like a temple, sort of. Be kind to yourself, his therapist says. He tries to be. Steve is better at it, at treating TJ like he's special and important and precious, but TJ doesn't neglect himself when Steve is gone. Anyways they don't see each other every day even when Steve isn't unavailable. It feels like more of a separation when TJ can't reach him at all, of course, but still.

Plus, the mere fact that he's here would be, if he actually were in trouble, a good sign. Actually asking for help and all that. A sign of healthiness.

"Of course, darling," Elaine immediately says. "Your room is ready for you. Did you give your things to Rosie? How long do you plan to stay?"

TJ shrugs and looks around a little, not quite ready to look his mom in the eyes any longer. He isn't lying to her and anyways he's actually lied to her about much worse things, but he still feels that twinge of guilt. "Nah, I just grabbed my keys and went. I don't know, I figured, a couple of days maybe? Do you have anything planned?"

"No, no," she quickly assures him. "I still have a bit of work to do but we can sit down for a dr- for some hot chocolate and talk in an hour or two, what do you think?"

He wishes grandma were here, that's what he thinks; she's always able to get his mind off things, and to distract his mom, but nana is in Miami. "Sounds great," he thus says and doesn't tell her that she can have a drink if she likes, it's not going to send him into a downward spiral to see her drink a finger or two of scotch. Abstaining will make her feel like she's doing something for TJ and less inclined to bother him with questions he can't – won't – answer.

Rosie brings the tea right when he leaves the office, so he takes the tray from her and takes it upstairs, pours a metric ton of sugar into what turns out to be some sort of herb tea and then doesn't drink any of it. The faint scent of fennel spreads in his room as he uselessly pulls a bit at the comforter on his bed, then goes to check out his closet as if he doesn't know what it contains. Two tuxes, a couple of suits, a bunch of shirts, lots of jeans and shirts with long and short sleeves, a couple of pairs of shoes suitable for essentially all occasions. It's by far not as many clothes as he has at his house, but it's a good collection; no matter what sort of event he might have to attend, he won't be under- or overdressed for it.

There are no pajamas; he sleeps in t-shirt and underwear if not naked. Steve wears pajamas, button-down top with matching bottoms, a dressing gown he puts on when he goes anywhere like he actually gets cold. He doesn't. TJ suspects it might be a leftover habit from before his body got improved; it's not like he had much time during the war getting used to a normal sort of lifestyle in his new body, and TJ is actually pretty sure that still was the case when Steve, well, got here. Woke up in the new century, millennium even. Not that anyone can blame him for being too overwhelmed and busy adapting to the big things so the small things fell by the wayside. Anyways, the nightgown is cute, and TJ is fond of it because one, if he wakes up in the middle of the night and Steve and the nightgown are gone that means Steve doesn't expect to return to bed too soon, meaning TJ should track him down and make him feel better or at least make it so he doesn't sit alone. Two, the nightgown is pretty big even with Steve in it, which makes for great cuddling for warmth; he can just melt into Steve's chest and sling his arms around him, and Steve will close the nightgown over him and hold him close and it's just... really nice.

Fuck, TJ is really damn worried. The nightgown is at his place right now, because that's where Steve last wore it, and if anything happens to him and that was the last time he touched it...

No. No, Steve is okay. In danger, but he contacted TJ, and he's probably very busy right now and not contacting him for safety reasons, nothing more. Tomorrow he'll probably call and say false alarm or that the danger is over, this was just a precaution, and everything will be okay. Maybe in a year they'll... no, TJ will never be able to laugh about this no matter how great the distance that comes with time, because even if this is a false alarm or just a precaution, the danger is still real. That's something that took a while to sink in for TJ, that Steve isn't just Captain America for publicity events and charities, he's also present for a lot more serious events. The sort of incidents that put his life in danger. Giving TJ a couple of codewords was not just a precaution, it was a necessity, and TJ thought he understood. Steve took great care to explain this to him to make sure he really knew what he was getting into.

TJ had thought he did understand, after that conversation, but now he realizes that he hadn't at all.

Steve hasn't seen TJ in any of these clothes. He doesn't know why that matters all of a sudden, but it does. Yeah, TJ has been here more than once since he left the hospital, brought Steve twice and even stayed overnight a few times, but there was never any need to change clothes. It's... it just makes him feel cold all of a sudden, is all.

Maybe he should drink the tea. Did his mom turn the heating down? But no, she wouldn't. It's been a cool fifty degrees on average the past couple of days. Normally TJ isn't one to care about the weather, but, well, this winter has been one of the nicest he can remember having, ever, in all his life, and it's because Steve is almost like a small oven. Not unnaturally warm or anything, but just warm all the time and everywhere, hands, feet, and incredibly cuddly. He'll always put his hand on TJ, wrap an arm around him, hold him close in bed. It's just... wonderful.

Okay, so it's not the weather that made this winter the best in recent memory.

The tea is cold. It tastes like syrupy sludge too, which would've been nice when it was warm, but makes him grimace now. He puts the cup down and perches on the bed, looks at the doors to his closet that he left open, and finds himself pulling his phone out again. There are a few notifications from apps that he flicks away before pulling the text up again.

_muirnin, go home._

Without that word, muirnín, it would actually sound a little bit like a threat, enough to give him the chills, especially considering it came to his new number that so far only Steve and his family have. But that word... Steve doesn't use a lot of different pet names for him. Darling, mostly, sweetheart on occasion, but he uses TJ's name a lot, and TJ likes that. Sometimes "baby" will slip out, mostly in bed, and once or twice, "doll". At first TJ hadn't really known what to make of that one, it's not really something somebody wants to hear, but Steve had been pretty embarrassed about it himself. It probably comes with the territory of being with a guy who grew up in the thirties, and if TJ appreciates the sentiment more than the word itself, well, it's still not a big deal.

Generally, Steve isn't one for sweet talking though. Which isn't to say he doesn't say sweet things, but he says them in a matter of fact way, like they're facts. TJ is amazing and Steve is lucky to have him, sometimes Steve will look at him and it takes his breath away, _who even says things like that,_ and more importantly, what is a guy like that doing with TJ?

But that's not a good thought to have, and though his insecurities come out sometimes, TJ so far has managed not to twist himself up in a web of them again. Talking about it helps.

Steve has spoken Gaelic to him a couple of times, because TJ asked him, but it was pretty pointless because TJ immediately felt a burning need to know what he was saying and asked for translations. Besides, Steve says, his Gaelic isn't pretty good, his mom would probably be embarrassed and if TJ actually spoke the language Steve would be embarrassed as well.

Muirnín. TJ wishes he could remember the exact pronunciation. Instead he remembers what Steve sounds like when he calls him sweetheart – "what do you want me to bring you for dinner, sweetheart" or when he flushed and ducked his head and said it's been a while since he had a sweetheart. Maybe that's better, remembering that.

Suddenly, his phone dings in his hand, a normally unobtrusive sound that still nearly gives him a heart attack now as it breaks the tense silence. With trembling fingers TJ unlocks it, and his belly swoops when he sees that it's a text – from his mother. Not from Steve, not from the unknown number. She's finished with work and waiting for him in the study.

Well-aware that if he doesn't, she'll worry and probably come look for him anyhow, TJ gets to his feet and heads downstairs, hands stuffed into his pockets. With forcefully deep, even breaths he tries to calm himself down a little, but it's not very successful. It's incredibly tempting to send a text to that unknown number, but Steve told him not to; one of the rules when he uses the codeword is to not try to contact him in any way. Steve will contact him as soon as it's safe.

TJ swallows, pats his pocket to check on his phone and goes to join his mother for an hour of uncomfortable conversation. It mostly consists of going back and forth between carefully probing questions to check whether he's on anything or going to be on anything or if anybody (read: Steve) did anything to him, and deliberately inconsequential rundowns of what's happening in Elaine's life and what the people they (she) know are doing.

Of course, the reason she doesn't let off and keeps trying to find new ways to ask him what's wrong – without ever actually asking any concrete questions, of course – is because she can tell he's tense. Eventually, after probably two dozen times of him checking his phone like he'd miss a message if he got one, she asks him, "Are you waiting for a phone call?"

"Nah, I'm just a bit..." TJ lifts his shoulders and bites his lip. He could... it wouldn't be a lie, but it would be deliberately misleading her. On the other hand, he's not sure he can deal with it if she keeps asking him what's wrong. Already he feels more tense than he did when he came here.

Well, it's not a lie. Taking a deep breath, TJ says, "It's just, I don't know. It's no big deal, that's why I got a new number, it should be okay now."

"What should be okay?" Elaine immediately asks, trying to tamper the sharpness in her voice as she latches on to what she'll consider the reason for his being here.

TJ bites his lower lip and tries not to feel too guilty when he tells her about his old friends who've kept bothering him the past couple of weeks, trying to get him to come to parties, to visit, to visit him, making promises to bring "fun", to have "a great time", telling him to stop being boring and lame.

"Tommy, you know these people are not your friends, right?" Elaine asks, all sympathy when she can't relate at all.

That's something she never understood, and TJ feels the guilty feeling make way for annoyance, an old sort of anger. "Well they understand me in ways none of you ever did, so if they're not even my friends what does that say about you?" he snaps.

She recoils, shock and hurt on her face, and he winces, looks away. He never meant to say that, isn't even sure if he really means it – even if it is the truth – but he doesn't apologize either.

"You know we've tried," Elaine says after a moment, voice soft.

Tried and failed. The anger leaves him as suddenly as it came and he deflates. "You only ever tried to fix me. All you ever wanted was for me to be useful. Mom, I don't know how to be useful to you."

"You know that's not true," she immediately protests. "What I wanted is for you to have a purpose to your life to _do_ something with it."

"To do more than play piano, you mean," TJ points out. He sounds more bitter than he means to. "Has it ever occurred to you that I'd be satisfied with less than you would?" It hasn't, of course. He sighs and rubs a hand over his face. "Look, I didn't mean to... this isn't a good time for this conversation, I'm saying things I never meant to say. Let's just... talk about this another time, okay?"

After a moment, she sighs. "Alright. But I just want you to know that... maybe I used to think you'd be more like Doug, but by this point I just want for you to be happy, and to find something that makes you happy."

"Maybe then you should stop trying to tear things down when I find something that does make me happy," TJ immediately snaps. "Like Steve. It'd be really awesome if you'd stop with the telling silence and the pinched expression whenever I bring him up, and it'd be even better if you'd stop asking me what it is he wants with me. And while I'm at it, another thing that would be helpful would be if you stopped acting like I'm a raw egg and like I'll shatter if things get a little difficult. It'd be really awesome if you could start trusting me to be in control of my own life."

"Trusting you is a little difficult after everything, Thomas," she snaps back. "Do you remember how often you've lied to my face, telling me to trust you?"

"Maybe I wasn't lying to you so much as I was lying to myself!" TJ suddenly finds himself yelling. It startles him and he falls silent, takes a deep, ragged breath. "I can't do this right now. I'm going to bed." Jumping up, he makes to leave the room, but of course his mother can't leave it well enough alone.

"TJ!" she calls after him – a demand, really.

"I'm not gonna fucking take anything because we had a fight, mom!" he yells back, not stopping on his way out, very well-aware of what a hypocritical thing to say that is. What he should have said was _anymore_. He's not going to take anything _anymore_ because they had a fight.

He's not. Apart from the fact that he doesn't have anything – and he doesn't, got rid of every last of his secret stashes when he came out of the hospital, hands trembling and caught somewhere between being terrified and triumphantly optimistic. It was a good decision, in many ways, not the least of which because it cuts off a big temptation. It'd take effort to find something now.

Not much of one, granted, but still. He's not tempted, not really. He has a support network now, and coping strategies. Except Steve isn't here, Steve isn't available because he's in danger, and if it gets bad he can call his therapist, she told him to call anytime if he needs to, but... it's definitely not as bad. He could call his sponsor from the NA's but it really isn't that bad.

All he needs is Steve. If he weren't so worried about him he probably wouldn't even have yelled.

Shit, he yelled at his mom, and he doesn't even know if he regrets it or no. She doesn't deserve to be yelled at, not really, but he did ask to have this conversation another time and she still didn't stop. She always has to have the last word and always thinks she's right and TJ is just so tired of it. So what if he has no ambition? So what if he doesn't see the point in prestige and connections and being seen by the public? He'd be satisfied if the only people who saw him were the ones important to him.

That's part of the problem, he knows. His family, they're not really good at that.

Steve is, but he isn't here right now. He might never-

 _No_. It's not that bad. If it were that bad TJ would know, he's sure of it. His mother is one of the most important members of the government; she wouldn't be sitting here calmly if something big enough to endanger Captain America were going on.

Steve is fine. Is going to be fine. And his therapist told him to write things down if anything ever got too much for him, so TJ goes to find a pen and paper and tries to recap the fight with his mother. It's pretty obvious he overreacted because he's so stressed about Steve, but was it really an overreaction? He's working on it, but he still has the tendency to bottle everything up.

He has no idea, and he's not going to figure anything out tonight. Alex, his therapist, will probably help him make sense of it, or maybe Steve, but... that's not going to happen too soon.


	2. Mug Brownies and Doug

It's a long night. TJ spends most of it awake, tossing and turning, going back and forth between worrying about Steve and trying to calm himself down. A couple of times he manages to doze off, but he's too restless for any kind of deep sleep.

As a consequence, when he gets up the next morning and makes his way to the kitchen only to be greeted by a flat "You look like shit", courtesy of his brother, all he manages is a weak glare as he beelines for the coffeemaker.

Halfway through his cup, he suddenly blinks and double-takes. "Doug? What are you-" Though of course, in that moment he figures out what Doug is doing here. "You're babysitting me."

"Not everything is about you," Doug returns, rolling his eyes. "Actually I'm here to pick some papers up for mom and I thought I'd have brunch with you. What with how you don't actually get up in time for breakfast." He raises one eyebrow all meaningful, and the thing is, a year ago TJ would have rolled his eyes and tucked that spike of hurt away deep inside. Now, a year later, that spike is dulled, this almost feels more like teasing the way it's meant rather than a dig at him, but TJ really is not in the mood. Not even to snap something back about how little sleep he's gotten, Doug would probably just say something about TJ's lifestyle and how he has no job anyway.

So he sighs and slumps against the counter. "Really not in the mood right now, Doug."

"Alright." His brother's face softens and he slips off the bar stool, crosses the distance between them. "Heard you had a fight with mom," he says, not really a probing for more information, more an invitation really. Anyways, Doug doesn't wait for a reply, just draws TJ into a short hug before stepping back and nodding towards the oven. "I brought food, sit down."

TJ doesn't; instead he tops up his coffee and then fills his brother's cup, gets forks and knives to go with the plates Doug pulls out of the oven, filled with eggs and bacon, hash browns and buttered toast, all kept warm in the oven. There is also a croissant each with strawberry jam, but not from the oven; Doug knows his brother's sweet tooth well.

They sit down and don't really talk about anything; Anne left for New York today to meet a client and Doug is once again reminiscing about how eloping was the best thing they could have done. Not that TJ doesn't agree, but after the fiftieth reiteration of it, well. On the other hand, outright rebellion against their mother isn't something that comes naturally to either of them. TJ would be proud too, in his place.

Doug stays for a while, then leaves, probably just in time for lunch break. TJ stays behind, nudges at the flaky crumbs they left all over the breakfast bar, then gets up abruptly to find the piano. It's a better one than the one he has at his place; this is the grand TJ learned playing on. Sitting down in front of it feels like slipping into a pair of well-worn shoes, and some of the tension goes out of him. He exhales, sets his fingers on the keys, and place.

What feels like not much time at all but must be hours later, he reemerges out of some kind of trance to aching hands and a hollow, if calmer feeling in his chest. With a grimace he flexes his fingers, then puts the cover back down over the keys and goes to have a bath. The hot water relaxes his tense muscles somewhat, shoulders and back hardened from staying in the same position for so long, hands strained from more exercise than they're used to. He feels a little better after coming out of the bath, but his phone screen is glaringly empty still of anything important and overall, it's not much improvement.

Yoga helps settle his mind a bit. He's always enjoyed the stretch, the gentle strain, the slow push past comfortable, and really, he's pretty damn proud of how flexible he is. And Steve appreciates it too, especially when he can fold TJ nearly in half while fucking him with no problem. Though Steve still will give him massages, sometimes because of the shapes he bent TJ into, sometimes just because. TJ would give up all massages from Steve forever and ever if he only got some kind of message from him right now.

His phone remains silent.

The cook prepared food for him, broccoli soup easy to heat up and sandwiches in the fridge, and TJ eats in the kitchen, turns on the TV to check in on the news. He's got a news app on his phone that tells him all relevant headlines as they happen with links to articles, so there's nothing new or surprising, and after a while he realizes this makes him too tense and changes channels, finds some X Files reruns. There's something cute about baby-faced David Duchovny, so TJ watches for a while without later remembering even one plot point. Something about aliens, probably. Three episodes in, his phone rings and TJ makes a dive for it, but it's his mother. She has her serious voice on when he picks up.

"Tommy, darling, I need to ask you a question, and I need you to answer, alright?"

"Sure," TJ replies, mouth suddenly dry.

"When have you last heard from Steve?"

His mother is the Vice President. That means... TJ doesn't know what that means in this context, but he knows that's not his mother asking, that's one of the four most important members of the government. "Four days ago," he replies. "He had to go to work suddenly and he can't contact me while he's gone. Why?"

"Are you sure?" she probes. "You haven't heard from him at all today?"

That, at least, TJ can answer with the complete truth. "No." Even the other thing he said isn't a lie in some aspects, because he hasn't been in direct contact with Steve and didn't receive any communication from Steve's phone.

"Alright."

It's in that moment that TJ realizes that with her asking about Steve, she must know something. "Why do you ask, mom? Did something happen?"

"Steve is fine," she immediately assures him. "And you know I can't tell you some things, TJ. I'll be home late, but I'll explain what I can when I get back, alright? But if Steve contacts you in any way, especially if you see him, please call me right away. Can you promise me that?"

TJ is an addict. He will always be an addict, and he has experience with looking his mother straight in the eye and lying to her so convincingly she'll believe him – or at least convincingly enough she'll pretend to. Over the phone it's child's play. "Okay," he says quietly, not leaving too much of a pause between her question and his answer. "I will."

Her exhale is small but audible. "Alright. I'll be busy, but call me anytime you need to darling. See you tonight."

"Tonight," he repeats to the dial tone.

Slowly he lowers the phone and stares blankly at the wall.

So, Steve is okay. He must be, otherwise they wouldn't be looking for him. Right? If they knew where Steve is or what kind of trouble he's in they wouldn't be asking TJ, they wouldn't be looking for him. And looking for him they are, clearly, not that TJ has any concrete idea who "they" is. But he knows one thing with absolute surety: if Steve doesn't want to be found by them, he has a reason for that.

Maybe someone who doesn't know Steve would be willing to consider that Steve went dark somehow, turned against the government or whatever. There could even be an explanation for that other than "Captain America turned evil"; in the 1940s America was a very different place than it is now, and maybe some people would believe that as a consequence it's very well possible that Steve, disillusioned, turned away from modern America. Other people might believe Steve went crazy, couldn't deal with waking up seventy years in the future or even just plain got brain damage from spending so much time literally frozen, or even went insane because of the serum.

They don't know Steve. They know him as Captain America, a figure that has been used to encourage patriotism since World War Two and who always stood for whatever course the country was following at the time. Even his family, who have met Steve twice and know him mostly through what TJ is willing to tell them, don't know Steve that well.

TJ does though, and Steve's friends do, and if TJ could talk to them (and he might even reach Tony Stark, even if both of them have changed numbers several times over since they last were in contact) he's sure they would agree: Steve would never, ever stand for something that he deems wrong. He would never fight somebody who is doing something good. Condensed to the smallest possible explanation, Steve, as he likes to say himself, does not like bullies, and he'd never be a bully himself, so if he doesn't want to be found by the government, that means the government is doing something wrong.

Well, there probably aren't many people who'd be honestly surprised to hear that, TJ thinks wryly.

God, this is terrible. Hunted by the government? How is that supposed to turn out well?

But maybe it's not the government, but somebody in the government who's doing something wrong, somebody who can use the government's means without arousing suspicion. Somebody high up, then.

Yes, that makes more sense; somebody's using the government to look for Steve under false pretenses. Right now Steve is on the run or something, but this is fixable. He has to deal with that person somehow, expose them or something, and then everything will be cleared up and he can come out again. Steve believes in America, in its potential and in what it stands for, if not some of the current practices and methods. And, just as importantly: America believes in Steve. Captain America, rather.

Yes. This will be cleared up soon; it has to be. They won't get away with this for long, not unless this is some high-level, wide-spread conspiracy, and only the most cynical, paranoid person would believe that. TJ doesn't.

So, he has to wait. Not call Steve's phone, not try to reach any of Steve's friends – pointless; either they're involved and busy, or they're not involved. Plus, contacting them would arouse suspicion for sure, and either way it's not like TJ would be able to do something or be of any help whatsoever. The most important thing he's got to do now is not tell anyone in case Steve does contact him.

He can do that.

His mother doesn't come home from work until midnight, and when she knocks on his door the light is off, has been for an hour, and he's curled up in bed, pretending to be asleep. But, not according to plan, she doesn't leave it; she opens his door and peers into his room, and then she knocks on the doorframe and calls out, soft but not quiet, "TJ?"

Ever since he's sworn off any mind-altering substances, he's had a light sleep, and she knows this. He can continue pretending to be asleep but she seems determined and might walk up to him to wake him up, and he's not sure he could believably fake coming awake up close. So he stirs a little and then settles again in the vague hope that she might leave him be after all, but instead it encourages her.

"TJ?"

He stirs again, makes a sleepy noise and blinks his eyes open, turns his head towards her a little and where she's letting the light from the hallway fall into his dark bedroom. "Mom?"

She comes into the room and perches on his bedside, something she's last done when he was in the regular hospital, and puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry I woke up up, baby, but I needed to talk to you."

Clumsily turning around for real to face her, TJ doesn't have to face the blurry way he blinks up at her, squinting a little in the light. "What's wrong?"

"It's about Steve," she says after a moment of hesitation. With her head illuminated from behind it's hard to tell her expression, so TJ sits up, reaches out to switch on the bedside lamp, then looks at her.

"Is this about why you asked if he contacted me?" He asks straight away. Maybe that's not the right strategy, but this is his _mother,_ and maybe he's not made for this kind of covert business, where he pretends to have no idea what's going on. Not that he does, but he has his suspicions.

"Yes," she confirms with a sigh. She looks tired, he thinks. "Today an APB went out for him. I can't tell you exactly what he did, that's classified, but he's on the run and it's important that he's found."

For a moment TJ just looks at his mother. He can't tell who he's talking to right now, Elaine Barrish, Secretary of State, or Elaine Barris, his mom. The question is if _she_ knows.

Keeping his voice calm and his gaze even, TJ only asks, "Is it?"

She narrows her eyes at him. "Have you heard from him, TJ?"

"No. I didn't lie, I haven't. But... come on, mom. This is Steve we're talking about." Shaking his head, he's unable to keep it inside any longer. "Do you honestly think he's done something that warrants him being arrested? An _APB_? Are you _serious_?"

"It's not my place to question this," she says a bit stiffly.

Narrowing his eyes, TJ leans forward a bit. "Isn't it? Because from what it looks like to me, there's something fishy going on, and it's not Steve pulling the strings, that's for sure."

"Alexander himself told me," his mother replies. "Are you trying to suggest the United States Secretary of Defense is, what? Corrupt?" She raises one eyebrow in that way that implies he's being ridiculous. When he was a teenager that eyebrow alone could send him into a downward spiral that lasted for days.

And, okay, the Secretary of Defense. TJ didn't know it went that high up, but it makes sense, in a way. It's not even that hard to believe; TJ never had any concrete evidence but something about Pierce always made him... feel a bit strange. That man is a full-blooded politician and maybe TJ is jaded or prejudiced, but he believes that people who are politicians all the time, there's something wrong with them.

Either way, his point stands. "Mom," he says again, looking her in the eyes and willing her to at least consider what he's saying. "Do you honestly believe that Steve did something to warrant an arrest? More importantly, do you believe that if he had done something wrong he would run away instead of owning up to it?"

"I know that that is what we would like to believe of the man we call Captain America," Elaine says after a moment. "But how much of that man is fiction and how much is real? Do you really know?"

In that moment TJ realizes that he's not going to convince her. Maybe he should have known; she fully believes in what she does, in the government she's part of. Suggesting that the Secretary of Defense is doing something wrong, something of this magnitude, if deliberately or because he was misled, is probably a bit too huge.

Especially considering that she doesn't really trust him to begin with. To ask that of her would probably be too much anyways, considering how often he's lied to her. He just wishes... he just wishes she'd still trust him.

But trust is something that has to be earned, and earned back especially hard, he knows that, and asking for it now, when it's not even been a year, even just half of one since he got released from hospital, is probably a bit much. He's not a teenager anymore. He's a grown adult, and part of being treated like one – which is what he wants – is having to own up to his mistakes and deal with the consequences.

Even if that means that in this case... well, even if it means that he might end up having to protect his boyfriend from his mother, the Vice President.

TJ closes his eyes and exhales slowly. When he opens them again, he knows what to do. "I have no idea what to believe, mom. One moment I think Steve is at work, the next you're asking me when I last talked to him and tell me there's an APB out about him. You won't even tell me why. What am I supposed to think?"

Her gaze gentles, turns sympathetic. "We never want to believe anything bad about those we love. I know, baby. I'm sure it'll all be explained soon. Just promise me that if Steve contacts you, you'll let me know, alright?"

For a moment TJ just looks at her, then he lets himself deflate, lowers his gaze. "Alright." His voice is quiet, defeated, and in his lap he wraps his right hand around his left wrist.

"I'm sorry, baby," Elaine says softly. "I know this is hard. How about you just stay with me for a while? I'll take care of everything."

Twitching his shoulders a little in something approaching a shrug, TJ just says it again: "Alright."

"Alright," his mother repeats, just as softly. She hesitates for a moment, then reaches out to put her hand on his shoulder, leans in to press a kiss to his forehead. "Go back to sleep now. It's been a long day. I'm sorry I woke you up."

TJ says nothing as she hesitates, then gets up and leaves his room, quietly closes the door after herself with care. He sits in the darkness for a long time, staring at nothing, trying to figure out what to do.

The next morning, after not much more sleep than the previous night, TJ stumbles into the kitchen to once again find his brother already there, but this time he's not dressed for work. TJ pauses, confused. "Doug?"

Wordlessly, Doug hands him a cup of coffee and while TJ drinks it, he pours milk into an already prepared bowl of muesli with fruits and nuts waiting. When TJ sets the cup of coffee down Doug pushes the bowl over to him, and TJ has that too, with a second cup of coffee his brother brings him. When he's finished he feels more awake, and more confused. "...Doug?"

For a moment Doug just stares at him, then he lets out a breath. "What the hell is going on, TJ? Mom told me there's an APB out on Steve!"

Doug has met Steve six times, and every single one of those times, even the dinners that included their parents, Doug has been stuck somewhere between star-struck and highly suspicious. He's never asked it like that, unlike their parents, but he too wonders what Steve is doing with someone like TJ. But, unlike their parents, he's met Steve one on one several times – well, with TJ there and Anne twice as well, but still. Doug has actually _talked_ to Steve, and not as a politician or as an interrogator. TJ doesn't think that anyone could have a real conversation with Steve and still believe that an APB could be out on him for the right reasons.

"I don't know," he replies honestly, shakes his head. "Something big is going on, Doug, something huge and fucked up. I don't believe for a second that Steve did something wrong."

"Something wrong or something against the law?" Doug asks, shrewd as ever.

For a second TJ is taken aback. Then he can't hold back the relieved smile. "Something wrong," he clarifies. "If he did something that's against the law, then he did it because it's the right thing to do."

For a moment Doug just looks at him, then he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Do you know what you're saying there, TJ?"

Spine straightening, TJ meets his brother's eyes head-on. "Yes."

Now Doug seems taken aback for a moment, if just a little. Then he nods. "Alright. Okay. Just... be careful."

"I'm not even involved, Doug, there's nothing for me to be careful about," TJ replies, some of his frustration coming through. "I have no damn idea what's going on. I just know that I trust Steve, and I believe in him."

"Alright," Doug says again. "Let's just... not say anything about that to mom, okay? Things are seriously strained right now at the Pentagon, we don't want to be dragged into any of it."

That stops TJ short for a moment. "...what are you doing here, Doug? Shouldn't you be there too?"

His brother snorts and sends him a sardonic look. "I'm sick. Mom thinks somebody should be here for you right now because things are difficult for you."

Well, he isn't really surprised by that. After last night's conversation... still, TJ grimaces and for a moment can't find anything to say. "I'm not going to backslide and take anything. It's not really a compulsion anymore." Not much of one. He's only thought about it once or twice the past couple of days, and not seriously.

"That's good." Raising one eyebrow, Doug reaches out to ruffle TJ's hair like he's actually the older one. "Still, company is good, right? And this way I don't have to look mom in the eye and pretend I support her supporting Pierce's manhunt for Steve."

TJ exhales and lowers his gaze. "I don't know what to do, Doug."

There's a moment of silence. "About what?"

"What if she... what if I have to pick sides?" Fingers knotting, TJ stares at his empty bowl without really seeing anything. "I don't want to have to pick sides."

"Let's just hope that won't happen," Doug replies quietly, hand settling warmly between TJ's shoulderblades. "And I think mom won't do that. She'll rather push you aside and keep you out of it altogether. She didn't like having to ask you; she's not happy that Pierce made her do that."

"Made her?" TJ repeats sharply, looking up. "Did he-?"

"Nothing like that," Doug quickly interrupts. He shrugs a little. "You know how it is."

Politics. Yeah, TJ does.

They don't really talk about much of consequence after that. Instead they decide to go to the home gym, work off some of the nervous energy that's in the air, though TJ doesn't get up to much, too tired to push himself. But he actually does end up falling into the zone, jogging on the treadmill for quite a while. They have lunch after, and then Doug has to lock himself away with the phone for a while. Even when he's "sick", he still has to work.

TJ preoccupies himself by scouring the internet. It seems some people have caught on to the APB while others consider it just a rumor; a few speculations are flying about but no reliable source has anything to offer but complete, dead silence.

His phone remains quiet.

When Doug comes back they play some video games, keeping themselves busy with the news station on low in the kitchen. Somewhere in this house there is always a TV with a news station on so TJ doesn't really pay attention, until Doug sits up and says, "Did you hear that?"

Without waiting for a reply he pauses the game and changes channels, this TV now echoing the kitchen TV's channel. It's a Breaking News broadcast that right now shows footage from a helicopter of some sort of mass car accident on a bridge somewhere in DC.

No, not a car accident. There are men with guns, the huge kind, dressed all in black like SWAT teams, but their uniforms don't have any writing on them. There's no way that's legal. "And here we can clearly see," some unseen reporter explains, "A man who witnesses claim to be Captain America and his two unknown allies being arrested." The camera suddenly zooms and there Steve is, huge and blond and on his knees, hands behind his head, two people next to him, all of them surrounded by a ring of armored men, rifles at the ready. One of them lifts his, aims at Steve's head, tilts his head and TJ doesn't know what sort of sound he makes but suddenly Doug's hand is clamped around his wrist, tight and sweaty.

Another of the armored guys pushes the guy's rifle down, gives a few orders, and then Steve and the other two are nudged none too gently into the back of a van. The reporter is talking again but TJ can't hear a word.

"Shit," Doug says loudly. "TJ..."

TJ twitches, feels the fingers of his hand, wrist still clamped in Doug's tight grip, spasm. The TV now shows the newscaster, and TJ doesn't... he doesn't... he blinks and looks at Doug. "H-he... he's okay, right?"

Doug stares at him, eyes huge and face pale. "I... I'm sure he is."

It hits TJ like a jolt. "You are? Why? Do you know anything?"

"Of course I don't, this just happened," Doug exclaims. Then he takes a deep breath, eyes flickering to the TV once. "I just... this is Captain America. They wouldn't just kill him, and I'm sure his friends know what's going on. Tony Stark probably saw that right when it happened, and I'm sure he has the means to find Steve right away and help. Besides, we don't know who the other two people were, but if Steve was with them right now that means they're fighters too, and that means they can probably get out of this situation. Especially when there are no civilians around who'll get hurt. Right?"

Yes. That... that makes sense. Except... "That guy meant to shoot him right there. What if they waited until they were in the car and did it then?"

"No way," Doug immediately protests. "Shooting in close quarters? You'll hurt yourself as likely as you'll hit who you mean to hit. No, I think they'll take them somewhere remote, and in that time Steve and his friends have the chance to subdue the guys in the van with them and get away. Or their friends, Tony Stark, can find them and help them. TJ, this is _Captain America._ I bet he's been in a situation like this dozens of times in his life. He knows how to get out of it. I'm sure he's okay."

Doug sounds so sure that some of his confidence just leaks into TJ, helps him calm down a little. He's still scared out of his mind, this is _serious,_ but Doug is right. Steve must have been in situations like this countless times, and he wasn't alone. He's probably gotten away already. He's fine, surely.

He must be.

They stay glued to the TV for the rest of the day. Doug keeps his arm around TJ's shoulders, a solid anchor throughout as they watch more news, research on the internet. There are lots of shaky mobile phone videos available from people who were there, painting a disturbing picture that crystallizes in the course of the day; whoever these people arresting Steve and his two allies (TJ _thinks_ one of them might be Sam) were, they at one point clearly threatened to shoot civilians. In the aftermath of that threat Steve let himself be apprehended, his two friends along with him. There is absolutely no doubt in TJ's mind who's in the right and who's in the wrong here, only he has no damn idea who these guys even are. The internet isn't very helpful, offering countless of theories and explanations, some of which sound credible, but still: it's the internet. The news remain unhelpful, offering little more than the internet; experts who speculate, who analyze the footage, and very little concrete information. There's no official comment anywhere, apart from a vague "we'll look into it" from DC's Chief of Police.

Their mother hasn't called. Well, to be more specific, she hasn't called _TJ_. She has in fact called Doug, and since Doug wasn't inclined to move away from TJ even for the duration of the phone call, it isn't hard to figure out what she wanted. Not that it would have been even if Doug had left, because what she wanted was to reinforce that Doug was to keep an eye on TJ and to let her know if it seems like TJ is in contact with Steve.

"Mom, he just got kidnapped," Doug told her at that, tightening his grip on TJ's shoulders when TJ flinched at those words. "I think he'll be a little too busy to call TJ."

A little later, probably after her chidingly telling him to keep an eye on things anyway, he sighs, resigned. "Will do, mom," he says, and pretty soon after hangs up.

There's a moment of silence, and then Doug says, "See, she thinks Steve has gotten away too. Everyone probably thinks that. Maybe they even know for sure, who knows."

"You mean these people have something to do with the government?" TJ asks. They did look kind of professional with their uniforms and all, like SWAT teams, as far as TJ can tell.

"Could've been private security as well," Doug grants; it's the most favored theory right now, probably because it makes the most sense. Somebody rich as hell and probably with a lot of influence too must be behind it, for them to pull something like this off in public.

Three hours after they first watched the kidnapping on TV – by this point they've seen the same footage a dozen times, and dozens of videos and clips more of other angles, though the helicopter footage remains the best – TJ's phone vibrates.

There isn't even a sender to this message, like it just appeared out of nowhere. _I'm fine, muirneach. I love you. Stay where you are._

For a handful of seconds TJ just stares blankly at his phone, not even blinking, until the screen goes dark. Jolted, he immediately switches it on again and stares at the message some more.

Doug, finally leaning in to read over his shoulder, says "Mu- mui- what?"

"Darling," TJ absently translates for him, then takes a deep breath. Eyes squeezing shut, he repeats those words back to himself: _I'm fine._

Steve is fine. He's okay. And he knew TJ would be out of his mind with worry after what he's seen and went out of his way to assure him that he's alright. With in how much danger he must be in right now, that's... that's a huge deal.

_I love you._

TJ wishes he could reply, say those words back, tell Steve to be careful. Not that it would be of any use whatsoever, Steve knows how TJ feels about him and surely will be careful without TJ needing to explicitly tell him so. Trying to contact him now would be futile, if not outright dangerous for either of them. The last thing Steve probably needs right now is for TJ to distract him.

So he has to wait.

"You okay?" Doug asks, making TJ blink. He never even- it takes him a moment to think about the question, but eventually he nods, if slowly.

"A lot less worried now, that's for sure." Exhaling, he closes his eyes for a moment, presses his phone against his chest and just breathes. "I'm okay." He'll be better when Steve gets back, but until then... this is as good as it gets. "I'm okay."

"Good," Doug breathes.

They turn the news off after that, because watching again and again as Steve gets forced to his knees at gunpoint really isn't conductive for TJ's mental state. They watch some comedy show with short episodes instead, play some games together on their phones. In the evening Doug forces TJ to eat, just simple pasta, and then they make mug brownies, something they haven't done in years and years. This is the most time they've spent together, one on one with no other people, in longer than TJ can remember, and TJ finds that he misses it. Misses his brother. As children they took their closeness for granted, were too preoccupied to realize they were drifting apart as teenagers, and suddenly they were adults with vastly different lives and ideas and plans and no real clue how to communicate anymore. They probably can never get the closeness of their childhood back, but TJ still wants more than what they had the past couple of years.

"Hey Doug," he says, and Doug, busy scooping the last remnants of brownie and vanilla ice cream out of his mug, looks up, blinks.

"Yeah?"

"I... I miss you." Suddenly embarrassed, TJ lowers his gaze, focuses on where his fingers are nervously twisting the hem of his shirt. "I was just thinking, maybe we should, uhm. Do this more often. Spend time together, just us."

"Okay," Doug says after a moment. "Yeah. Uhm, I'd like that."

God, they are so awkward. Smiling into his lap, TJ glances up to find Doug staring at his own lap, looking just as awkward as TJ feels. But he's smiling too, and he said yes, said that he wants that too, so that's good. It's not just TJ then. He always thought – and to be honest still thinks – that Doug doesn't like him much, him and his lifestyle, but now that he's turning things around maybe that's changed. To be honest, TJ didn't much like himself and his lifestyle either, so it's not like he blames his brother at all.

After a brief moment of silence, Doug shifts uncomfortably. "So... wanna finish Parks and Rec?"

They watch for another couple of hours, then go to bed.


	3. Muirneach

If their mother comes home that night, it's late again and TJ doesn't see her; by the time he gets up again in the morning he's gone already, if she was ever there. After going to bed last night feeling relatively calm, reading Steve's text one last time before settling in, he slept relatively well, catching up on some well-needed rest. He still feels exhausted when he wakes up though, and he's getting restless and nervous again. How did Steve spend the night? Where? Was he safe? Warm, dry, well-fed? Where is he now?

What if this doesn't end soon? What if Steve ends up being on the run months to come? TJ doesn't know what he'd do, weeks and weeks on end of not knowing what Steve is doing, where he is, if he's safe – of knowing that he's being chased. Go insane, maybe. God, he wishes he could be of any use to Steve, but all he can offer are some foreign language skills and questionable knowledge in the area of drugs and partying. Less than useful.

A knock on his door distracts him from the downturn his thoughts have taken. "TJ? Pancakes are ready!"

Glad for the distraction, TJ rolls out of bed and makes his way down into the kitchen where Doug is waiting with two plates stacked high with pancakes. Blueberry, as TJ finds, and maple syrup.

"I gave the staff the day off," Doug states as they eat. "Just in case." He'd done that yesterday afternoon too, shortly after they first saw the news. Not that they have lots of people in the house; security is outside and inside there's just the cook and the maid present for the full day. They have cleaning staff present for half days, and a couple of times a week the gardeners and the woman who's responsible for the care and maintenance of the cars. Enough people who could notice that something's going on. Their staff do sign iron-clad NDA's, but that doesn't have to mean much in the grand scheme of things.

"Good," TJ nods, offering his brother a small smile. "Thanks."

Doug shrugs like it's no big deal, and maybe it isn't, but it feels important to TJ. He'll remember this. They might not always have been there for each other, but where it counts, they mostly could rely on each other. Maybe in the future, they can turn this "mostly" into an "always". That'd be great, TJ would like that.

They spend the morning doing nothing of consequence; their mother checks in with them and TJ spends the conversation assuring her that he's not on the verge of taking anything or trying to kill himself again, and lying to her about Steve and how he'll tell her if Steve contacts him. Doug lies to her about the same things and reassures her that yes, he's keeping an eye on TJ and no, TJ isn't drinking or using, yes, he'll make sure that remains the case.

When he finally hangs up they look at each other for a long moment, and then Doug says, "This is pretty difficult for her. She's never had to decide between family and her job like this before."

TJ lifts one shoulder. "I know. And she doesn't like Steve, so."

"She doesn't trust him," Doug corrects. "I'm not sure about liking him."

That earns him a look from TJ; oh please. "She doesn't like him, Doug. She thinks I'm taking his side over hers on this whole publicity idea she had about being seen with Captain America."

"Well, you are," Doug points out after a moment of hesitation.

"I don't want it as much as Steve doesn't want it, maybe more," TJ corrects. "If I didn't have an opinion on the matter I'd keep out of it and let them discuss it out, but I do."

"For what it's worth, I think it's great you're sticking up for it," Doug offers. "Doesn't matter why."

Surprised, TJ smiles. "Thanks."

Doug shrugs a little. "She just has to get to know him a bit better, that's all."

She has to _want_ to get to know him better, TJ corrects in his head. Which might never happen now. Again the question arises what will happen in the future. It's not like Steve will suddenly become not a fugitive today and everything will be fine again by tomorrow.

They have lunch, a vegetable and chicken stir-fry the cook prepared as much as possible; they just have to throw it all int a frying pan and cook rice, which they manage just fine. It's not that they're incapable in the kitchen, really, they just don't cook much. Neither of their parents would ever cook when they lived at home, and TJ isn't sure about Doug and Anne, but when he cooks with Steve he really just follows Steve's instructions, cuts vegetables or stirs things while Steve does all the planning and real work.

It's a while after lunch. TJ is in the piano room, not really playing anything so much as stretching his muscles, when his phone rings; it's Doug. "Come here right now," he orders, tension in his voice. In the background TJ hears what sounds like the news.

He doesn't question it, doesn't protest being ordered around, he just runs down the hall back into the living room, where Doug is glued to the TV.

"...nobody could be reached for comment so far," the newscaster is saying. "We will of course continue to broadcast live and report any developments."

"Three huge... things came out of the ground over by the Triskelion," Doug reports, tense, as the newscaster moves on to a different topic. "They look like flying flattop carriers and yes, I know how that sounds." He clicks something on his laptop and turns the screen towards TJ, who immediately hurries over to the sofa and sits down as the video starts.

He couldn't describe it better than Doug, really. It's shaky mobile phone footage, showing the three huge things rise into the sky.

"Aliens?" TJ asks, mouth dry. They'd watched the New York footage live on TV as well, and it had been horrible to see.

Doubtful, Doug shakes his head. "Doesn't look like New York, at least. More... man-made. Or what do you think?"

They find different footage to look at, some photos that are sharper than the mobile footage that's available. And then the news on TV change again, with new footage. The professional type this time, from helicopters, with reporters who describe what they see. Doug is right, the things look man-made – and dangerous. This impression is reinforced by the fact that some sort of fight is clearly going on, with fighter jets and helicopters and shots being fired all around the things, though nobody can tell what or why or who.

For maybe twenty minutes, nothing worthy of note happens. Then the three platforms start shooting at each other completely out of nowhere, right above DC.

Like back during the Invasion of New York, Doug and TJ are glued to the TV, watching, horrified, as the platforms start falling out of the sky. Thankfully, they flew straight up from the Triskelion and thus don't land on any inhabited area – except for the Triskelion itself. One of them crashes straight into the tri-building in a way that demands to remind the viewer of different towers that were crashed in a similar way.

"Fuck," Doug breathes, hand clamped tight around TJ's.

Sickened, all TJ can do is hope that the people evacuated the building in time.

For about three minutes after the crash, it's all the reporters will talk about. Showing the same footage over and over again, describing what they see, analyzing, speculating, and in the end not offering much of an explanation at all. Then the newscaster at the studio goes quiet for a moment, leaving the silence for her colleagues in the helicopters to fill, until the cameras abruptly return to the studio. The newscaster stands there, looking a little pale, a paper in her hand, old-fashioned. The sheet trembles a little.

She tells them that breaking news have just come in; what could possibly be the whole of SHIELD's database has been made available on the internet by an unknown source, bringing to light an overwhelming amount of incredible information. "Among others," the newscaster says, visibly trying to force her voice to remain even and calm, "the fact that apparently the Nazi organization known as HYDRA has infiltrated not only SHIELD but the US government to the highest order. This is unconfirmed as of yet, and as such we will not cite names, but from what it looks like, the source of information seems credible. We will, of course, stay on top of this and report as new information crystallizes."

"HYDRA?" Doug repeats. "I thought Captain America-" he falls silent, clearly remembering that Captain America is TJ's boyfriend, and TJ-

With a sickening lurch in his belly TJ realizes that this is what must have been preoccupying Steve the past couple of days. He must have found out about the infiltration- _fuck,_ he's been working for SHIELD. Didn't they just say that SHIELD's been infiltrated?

"The internet," TJ says, shaky, throat closing, but thankfully Doug understands him right away and pulls his laptop close. He types something into the search bar, presses enter and... nothing.

"Google is down," he reports after another couple of tries, voice incredulous.

Of course it is.

Half the internet is down, turns out. Their mother calls them about an hour in, on the landline because the mobile networks are overloaded. To both their surprise, she asks for TJ straight away.

"I'm sorry, baby," is the first thing she says. She sounds incredibly weary. "You were right."

TJ blinks, shares a look with Doug. "Right about what?"

"About Steve," she clarifies. "Alexander was HYDRA. Half of SHIELD was HYDRA, and Steve found out. We're in a hell of a mess right now, it's chaos. I don't think I'll be home tonight."

Biting his lower lip, TJ nods even though she can't see it. "It's all fucked up, mom."

She doesn't even bother correcting his language. Not that she doesn't curse, but she still doesn't like it when they do it. Instead she laughs, tired. "That it is." She pauses for a moment. "I'm glad you didn't tell me anything, baby, and I'm really sorry I put you into that position. I really am. I let Alexander get to me when I should have trusted you over him."

"No, mom," TJ protests immediately, a bit awkwardly. "You couldn't have known. He must be very good at what he does to get into the position of Secretary of Defense while at the same time being HYDRA. Nobody knew; how could you have? And... you weren't wrong, the other day. I haven't exactly proven myself the most trustworthy person the last couple of years."

"But you've worked really hard the past few months at changing that," she refutes. "You've put a lot of energy and effort into that, and I knew that, but I didn't acknowledge it enough." There's some background noise and she pauses, talks to somebody else for a moment, sending them away. When silence returns she continues, "I really am proud of you. I can't imagine how hard it's been for you, but I realize I haven't been as supportive as I could and should have, and for that I'm sorry."

"Mom," TJ says a bit helplessly, blinking rapidly. "You don't have to apologize. You had your reasons, and they were valid. I'm sorry too."

She laughs once, and it almost sounds like she's crying, and TJ at the same time wants nothing more than to be with her as he's glad that he isn't; he never could bear seeing her cry, the few times he did. But a hug would probably do them both some good right now. "You don't have anything to apologize for, TJ. Not anymore. You've made your apologies a long time ago, and I've just made some of mine, and maybe we can talk about this again at some point, but I've realized I haven't done right by you lately, baby, and I'm going to fix that, if you'll let me."

Doug's hand is warm on his back, supportive and comforting, and TJ takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Of course, mom," he says, voice wobbling a little. "You don't have to fix anything."

"I think I do," she disagrees calmly. "And I will." She sighs. "Can you give me your brother? I need to talk to him about some things, too."

"Y-yeah, just," TJ's breath hitches a little and he leans into Doug, who by this point has wrapped his arm around his shoulders completely. "Have you- do you know anything about Steve?"

She's silent for a moment. "I'm sorry, baby. They haven't found him yet."

Exhaling, TJ gnaws on his lower lip for a moment. "That's good, right? The APB on him is void now, right, so that means he can just come out from where he's hiding?"

There's another pause on the other end of the line, a longer one this time, and then Elaine says, "TJ... he was in the Triskelion."

Abruptly, TJ feels cold. "What?"

"He was involved in the fighting – it was SHIELD against HYDRA. He was there. We have some reports that he was on one of the helicarriers, but we don't know for sure. We haven't heard from him, but he likely doesn't have the most faith in the government right now, considering that we've been chasing him the past couple of days. I'm sure he's fine, TJ," she hastens to add when he makes some sort of noise. "He's fine, baby."

"You don't know that!" TJ protests, voice high and scared. "Are you sure? He was in the building?"

"Yes," she confirms, a bit hesitantly. "But that was over an hour before the helicarrier crashed into it. I'm sure he got out. He got out of a lot worse scrapes than that."

TJ can't imagine what those would be.

"He was in a war, TJ," Doug adds on his other side, thumb rubbing comforting circles into TJ's shoulder. "The Second World War, even. He knows how to get out of situations like that, and besides, he's a little less destructible than most people, right? I'm sure he's fine. He'll text you as soon as he can, I'm sure of that."

Doug can't know that either. Neither of them can know that. _They haven't found him yet,_ his mother said, like they expect him to be one of the bodies in the rubble.

Abruptly TJ feels sick; he drops the phone and makes a mad dash for the bathroom, slamming to his knees in front of the toilet bowl just in time to empty his stomach into it. Seconds later Doug is there, hand on TJ's back, voice low and soothing, but TJ can't understand a word over the ringing in his ears.

Pretty soon his stomach is empty, but his gut still clenches and he chokes a bit. It's then that he realizes he's crying. A glass of water appears in his vision and he tries to unclench his fingers, but even when he manages his hands are shaking so much he spills water all over himself. Doug has to help him keep the glass steady so he can fill his mouth, rinse it once, twice. He's offered a washcloth next, to wipe his face and mouth with, and then more water. And then Doug is there, kneeling on the tiles in front of TJ, arms wrapping around him and that's when TJ really starts to sob, clinging to his brother, face buried in his neck.

"I got you," Doug murmurs, hand on the back of TJ's hair. "I got you."

It takes a while, but eventually Doug manages to maneuver TJ back into the living room, where the news are still on. They still haven't cottoned on to Captain America's involvement and TJ wonders how the fuck they can't know something that _important,_ how they manage to fail to report such a vital fact.

Slowly, the internet becomes available again. Some pages are still down – google is operating at snail's pace – but Doug somehow manages to dig out some information for TJ, through careful, patient searching of any type of news site and some that aren't. "Take all of it with a grain of salt," he tells TJ at the beginning, and then drops any sort of information he finds. Apparently HYDRA never went down during WWII, they just went underground. "Apparently any sort of conspiracy theory you can think of is true, only HYDRA is behind everything," Doug reports. "Not so sure about that one but okay."

TJ wonders if Steve knows, when he found out and how he felt, and feels nauseous all over again. Somehow Doug must be able to tell, because he takes the cup of chamomile tea he brewed for TJ and urges him to take a sip, and then another. Slowly, TJ's stomach settles, but he doesn't feel any better for it.

"They've been chasing him," Doug reports a bit later. "Some people say it was HYDRA, others say it was SHIELD because they found out that Captain America was working with HYDRA." He barks a laugh. "Do these people even hear themselves?"

"I dare them to say that to my face," TJ murmurs, anger stirring in him, and somehow, that makes him feel a little better. "What else?"

"The woman with Steve when he was arrested was the Black Widow, it's all but confirmed, some people made face comparisons and everything." Doug turns the screen to show him a few pictures, most of them blurry because the footage during the Invasion of New York wasn't much better than the one from the incident on the bridge. "Her name's Natasha Romanov and supposedly she was an assassin for the soviets before she defected." His tone of voice makes obvious what he thinks of that little tidbit. "Oh, wait, this person says she never defected, she was a double-agent for HYDRA all this time."

TJ has no opinion to offer on the subject whatsoever. To be honest, he could care less, except he does know that Steve has a friend named Natasha whom he does missions with, so he isn't surprised to hear that name. For all he knows it's all true. Or it's all lies.

Right now, TJ doesn't care. All he wants to know is where Steve is, if he's okay.

He must make some sort of noise, because Doug looks up and at him. When he sees TJ's expression his face softens and he reaches out, wraps his arm around TJ's shoulders to pull him in. "He'll be fine," he assures, setting the laptop aside to pull a blanket over TJ. Not that it alleviates the light tremble in his limbs any.

"You don't know that," TJ argues, but quietly, and Doug doesn't say anything. Thankfully, because it's the truth, but even if Doug's reassurance and confidence is built on nothing, it still makes TJ feel a little less like he's going to fall apart.

They don't eat dinner. Doug tries to convince TJ to eat something, anything, even some chicken broth like TJ is sick or something, but TJ can't. The mere thought makes him nauseous, and so Doug doesn't eat anything either. That's not what TJ meant to do but Doug refuses to leave him alone, and any other time TJ would be annoyed if not downright angry at the coddling, but right now he's grateful. Enough so he doesn't think about whether Doug is on suicide or drug watch more than he's trying to be there for him.

It's long since gone dark when somebody rings their doorbell. TJ startles and Doug frowns; they share a look. A visitor? Security should have called up to let them know who was requesting entry and ask if they were allowed, and anybody who doesn't require that certainly doesn't need to ring the doorbell.

"I'll go," Doug volunteers.

"Wait," TJ blurts. "What if it's... something bad?"

The suggestion earns him a raised eyebrow from Doug. "Because somebody who wanted to harm us would ring the doorbell."

Point. A little embarrassed, but still worried, TJ watches as his brother untangles himself from the nest of blankets they've buried themselves in and heads off. He strains his ears, but the door isn't close enough to the living room to hear it open. Voices should carry, though; the TV is on mute.

He hears nothing until Doug suddenly yells, "TJ!"

Startled and definitely scared now, TJ jumps up and almost falls flat on his face as the blankets refuse to let go of his legs. With a curse he shakes them off and hurries into the hall. Doug is standing by the door, holding it open and having stepped aside, and in the door-

In the door-

Steve looks like shit, frankly, but the blood and dirt doesn't even register with TJ. There Steve is, hale and healthy, or at least healthy enough to stand there and not look completely like death warmed over, and TJ was so goddamn _scared._

The way down the hall doesn't even register; he's just suddenly in front of Steve, jumping into his arms and pulling him close. Steve makes some sort of noise, not a word, and wraps his arms around him in return, draws him in even closer, until they're pressed against each other from the knees up. And Steve is tall, but somehow he still manages to fold himself up so his face is pressed into TJ's neck as he breathes, the sound rattling a bit in his chest. TJ might be crying.

"Come on, inside," Doug eventually says, plucking first at TJ's shirt and then, when TJ doesn't move, presumably on Steve's. As they shuffle inside without letting go of each other, Steve winces a little, and that's when TJ registers two things: first, Steve is wet or at least damp, moisture seeping into TJ's clothes, and secondly, there was blood. He distinctly remembers now seeing blood, and how did he not register that right away?

"Are you hurt?" he demands, pulling away from Steve. For the fraction of a second Steve doesn't budge, but then he lets go and allows TJ to push away, examine him from top to bottom. What he finds makes him feel sick all over again: Steve looks _wrecked_. Definitely like he went through a war and only barely came out on top. The worst part is the big, deep red spot on his left side. There are several bursts of blood on Steve's skin and his torn, damaged uniform, but this spot is huge. "What-" TJ asks, reaching out, and then he collects himself.

"Doug, get the first aid kit," he barks and takes Steve's hand, starts to drag him into the kitchen, closer than the bathroom. "How bad it is?"

"Not very," Steve immediately claims. "Two days, three, I'll be fine."

That's not what TJ asked. "How much does it hurt?" he clarifies. "Is this- did you get shot? Is there a bullet?" He swallows at the thought. "We should get a doctor."

"No doctor, please," Steve says quickly, and if it hadn't been for the please TJ wouldn't have listened, but that word makes him pause. "It's really not that bad, darling. Some rest, some food, I'll be okay. I never get infections. It'll heal. It's not even bleeding anymore."

No doctors is one thing, but what Steve is suggesting, no medical attention at all? That, TJ definitely cannot do. "No doctor, fine," he cedes reluctantly. But Steve knows his body best and TJ can hardly force him. "But I'm still cleaning that out. Sit." He directs Steve to one of the bar chairs, then goes to fill a bowl with warm water and get a dishtowel. "Do you need anything? Food? Something to drink? Take that off."

"Both would be nice," Steve admits, so TJ goes to get the orange juice and a glass. Doug returns in that moment, setting the first aid kit on the counter, so TJ asks him, "Can you make something to eat for Steve?"

"Sure," Doug immediately agrees. "Anything specific or just... anything?"

"Anything," Steve replies with a grimace.

Seeing the way he winces with every move, TJ grimaces as well. "Wait, I'll help you, stop." Glass with orange juice set on the counter within Steve's reach, TJ then starts helping Steve out of the uniform, following his directions. Seeing the bruises, ranging from faint yellow to a deeply violent dark blue, is upsetting, but TJ swallows it down. If Steve thought this is too much for him he'd probably send him away to take care of himself, and Steve can be unreasonably stubborn where these things are concerned. TJ hasn't been there when he was this hurt so far, but he knows that much.

Together, they manage to peel Steve out of the uniform. The shield, clasped to his back, goes on the chair to Steve's other side, and once Steve is undressed, TJ takes a moment to examine his whole body. Jesus, but he looks like he's been in one hell of a fight. There's another wound on his thigh, a cut shallower and smaller than the one on his ribs, but still.

"Hell," Doug says, putting a steaming plate of re-heated leftover stir-fry on the counter next to the empty glass of orange juice. "You look like... do you need an ice pack?"

"It'd probably be more efficient to send me back into the Antarctic rather than individually ice all this," Steve tries to joke, but it's not very funny.

"Sorry," he adds after a moment, a little quieter, after TJ sends him a look.

"Eat that," TJ just says and takes the dishtowel, dips it into the bowl of warm water and sets to cleaning up what looks like a long cut rather than a bullet wound on Steve's ribs. He didn't lie, it's not bleeding anymore, but it starts again when TJ dabs at it and he apologetically winces his way through it. Steve, on the other hand, barely twitches, one arm up in the air to give TJ room to work, the other busy shoveling the stir-fry into his mouth. Doug took one look at Steve's eating speed and returned to the fridge; there are now fries and chicken nuggets in the oven, and a pizza.

"It's okay if you're not going to eat all of it," Doug says as he returns to the bar to fill up Steve's glass. "I just thought, better too much than too little, right?"

Steve sends one glance towards the oven. "No, that's fine, I'm going to eat all of it. I haven't had much food the past couple of days." One corner of his mouth tilts up. "Increased metabolism means I have to eat more too."

Wordlessly, TJ steps away from him to examine the cut, as clean as it's going to get with the water. It's not like TJ has a lot of experience in first aid, but he can't see any obvious dirt, and the first aid kit has disinfectant. That should be enough, right?

Doug and Steve talk a bit, Doug once again at the fridge to find some yogurt to tide Steve over until he's assembled a quick cheese and ham sandwich, and then another, and a third, until the fries at least are done. Steve eats like he's starving and TJ feels a little nauseous at the thought of him not eating the past couple of days. When he can, Steve eats at least a snack every couple of hours, plus three big meals during the day. The thought of no food at all, plus the fighting and stress and possible lack of sleep he must have had...

TJ swallows his worry down and sets to cleaning the rest of Steve's wounds, small cuts and areas where the bruises are bad enough that the skin opened. The water is pink by the time he's done and the dishcloth not fit for any sort of use anymore. He sets both aside and opens the first aid kit to get the disinfectant and cotton balls. "This might hurt," he warns, because he does know that much, and starts dabbing the wounds. Is it his imagination, or do some of them already look a little better than before?

Steve barely grimaces even though it has to burn like hell, and TJ presses his lips together and keeps silent, focuses on his task.

Once all the wounds are disinfected TJ considers for a moment, then takes two of the biggest adhesive bandages there are, cuts the end of one off, slathers antibiotic cream on them and then puts them over Steve's wound, the uncut bandage going on top of the cut one so the ends overlap and the whole cut is completely covered. The other wounds, being smaller, he can treat just by putting bandages and cream on them. When he's finished, every one of Steve's wounds covered, he lets out a deep breath.

"Finished?" Steve asks even as he finally lowers his arm.

TJ looks up at him and frowns a little, opening his mouth to say he doesn't know what, but before he can even take a breath Steve has framed his face with both hands and pulled him close, is kissing him.

For a second TJ doesn't move, can't, but then some sort of noise wrangles free from his throat and suddenly he surges up into the kiss, rising to the tips of his toes and wrapping his arms around Steve's neck. There's sand in Steve's hair and he's sticky all over, but TJ could care less.

Eventually Steve pulls away a little, leans his forehead against TJ's. "I'm fine," he promises, voice low. "I promise. In a week you won't even know I was hurt."

That gives TJ a pretty horrible thought. "Never- promise me to never hide from me that you're hurt."

Steve blinks once, like the thought never occurred to him, and that honestly relieves TJ just as much as how fast he replies when he says, "I won't. I promise."

"Okay," TJ says, draws a deep breath. Steve smells swampy somehow, of mud and dirt, a faint metallic scent and sweat; not exactly rosy by any definition. TJ has never smelled anything better.

Wordlessly, Doug puts the pizza on the counter and takes the empty plate of fries away. Steve doesn't move, but TJ takes it as a sign to take a step back, give him some space to replenish his energy.

"Maybe you should eat something too," Doug suggests, subtle as a brick. TJ sends him a look for that, but doesn't manage to put much energy into it; Doug has been an incredible help and support the past couple of days and now and TJ will never forget that.

And of course Steve doesn't miss that. Frowning, he focuses on TJ. "You haven't eaten?"

"Dinner," TJ emphasizes. "And Doug hasn't, either."

"We can share," Steve offers right away, pushing the pizza a little away from himself. "Come on. I'm not really starving anymore, have a piece." He sends first TJ, then Doug a look, inviting and resembling a puppy's expression a lot, and TJ has absolutely no resistance to that face. None. Zero.

Seems like Doug doesn't either, though, which is at least a little comforting. They both pick a slice of pizza, though TJ still doesn't really feel hungry, and then both chew very slowly so Steve, who plainly needs it more, can have the rest. But of course Steve has already done the math and leaves exactly one third of the pizza over for each of them.

"Steve, come on," TJ tries. "Have some more."

But Steve just shakes his heard, that stubborn pull around his mouth that means he won't be swayed. "You eat the rest. There still are chicken nuggets, we can share those too."

"Oh!" Doug makes and dashes for the oven, where aforementioned chicken nuggets are acquiring a nice tan.

Meanwhile, TJ continues trying to convince Steve. "Come on, Steve. We weren't the ones who starved the past couple of days."

"I did have some food," Steve argues. "I really wasn't exactly starving. I probably could have eaten better, but things were kind of hectic."

TJ frowns vaguely, then smiles at Doug when he returns with a plateful of chicken nuggets he decisively pushes towards Steve. "What happened?" He doesn't mean to ask, it just sort of... slips out.

Steve glances at him, then sighs. "I might as well tell you, it'll be all over the internet anyhow. Do you know that SHIELD has been infiltrated by HYDRA?" When they both nod he lowers his gaze for a moment, mouth twisting, but then he's back on track. "A couple of days ago... four? It both feels like more and less. Well, they assassinated SHIELD's Director, Nick Fury – definitely not HYDRA. That's when I texted you to come here. Fury showed up wounded at my place and gave me a USB stick full of data and told me something fishy was going on, and then he got shot right in my living room."

Feeling sick, TJ reaches out and puts his hand on Steve's arm. The living room where they- okay, the only reason Steve is going to go back there is to get his things.

Steve offers him a faint smile and turns his arm, grabs TJ's hand to twine their fingers before picking up the thread again. "So I didn't know what was going on, but I knew you might be in danger. The chance was remote but I didn't want to risk anything so I sent you here. Then Natasha and I did some recon and found out about HYDRA. There were a few assassination attempts on us by them, and they eventually caught up with us here in DC – you saw that on TV, right? Yeah, I thought so," he nods when TJ confirms, squeezes his hand once. "That's why I sent you a text that I was okay as soon as I could. We got away pretty quick but I figured it had to look very bad. Then we... well, SHIELD had this plan, Project Insight – HYDRA had this plan, rather, HYDRA within SHIELD. You saw the helicarriers; they were supposed to target bad guys all over the planet and shoot them as necessary. Fury told me about the project a few hours before he was killed, I told him what I think about it, and turns out I wasn't wrong: HYDRA meant to use the helicarriers to eliminate anyone and everyone who might be a danger to them. As soon as they went up it was supposed to happen, so we went in and put a virus in the helicarriers so they'd target each other instead. Only we had to physically go in and insert the virus into each carrier's mainframe, and when they started shooting I was still on one."

TJ makes a noise at that, involuntary, betraying his shock and belated fear. He saw that on TV, _he saw that live on TV_ and to think that Steve was _right there_... he feels sick all over again.

"I'm fine," Steve immediately tells him, like TJ doesn't know that he got out safe. That makes it a little better, but doesn't help TJ feel less horrified. "Hey." Steve lets go of his hand only to put his broad palm on the back of TJ's neck, pull him into his arms. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," TJ protests without removing his face from Steve's neck. He wants to wrap his arms around Steve and hold on tight, but he is very aware now of where all of Steve's bruises are and there isn't really a safe place to touch. Belatedly he winces as he remembers how he jumped Steve when he first got there; he definitely must have hurt him then, but Steve never said a word.

"For what it's worth, it wasn't really planned that way," Steve explains. "We just had to blow them up as soon as possible so they wouldn't crash into any inhabited area. I jumped into the Potomac, swam out and came here."

"Straight away?" Doug interjects, sounding a little scandalized. Then he immediately turns practical, the way Doug is. "Do you need to call anyone? You can have the phone."

"Thanks, it's fine," Steve declines. His hand is still on the back of TJ's neck, warm and safe somehow, and TJ doesn't feel inclined at all to move. "I made sure everyone made it out okay." He hesitates. "As much as possible, anyway. They started evacuating the Triskelion pretty quickly, but not everybody made it out before the helicarrier crashed into the building."

"It can't be helped," TJ murmurs, one hand on Steve's hip, the other below his left pectoral, touch as soft as he can make it in the least bruised areas. "It's horrible, but you did what you could."

Hand squeezing TJ's neck a little, maybe in reassurance or in gratefulness, Steve nods slowly, like he doesn't quite agree but doesn't want to talk about it.

"Do you want any more food?" Doug asks after a moment.

Steve shakes his head, chin brushing TJ's head. "No, thank you. This is great. In a couple of hours, probably, but I'm fine for now. Thank you."

"Well, you're free to everything," Doug offers. "The Vice President shouldn't come home tonight. I'll go to bed now, alright?"

At that, TJ finally lifts his head from Steve's neck to look at his brother. "Thanks, Doug."

Doug shrugs. "No problem."

"No, really," TJ insists. " _Thank you_." Doug's support has been invaluable and TJ needs to reinforce that. He's definitely going to tell Doug that again explicitly, but not right now. He feels fragile enough as it is, and the last thing he wants is to make Steve feel like he needs to take care of TJ after the awful couple of days he he's had.

Doug pauses, clearly catching the meaning even without TJ needing to explain, and smiles. "You're welcome. Goodnight."

"Night," Steve and TJ echo. Then they're alone.


	4. TLC

Looking up and at Steve, TJ shivers a little, remembering how scared he'd been, and he buries his face back in Steve's neck, grateful when Steve's arms immediately wrap around him. "I'm so glad you're okay."

"I am," Steve immediately reinforces. There's a brief moment of silence, and then Steve whispers, "I'm really glad you're okay too."

That makes TJ blink. "I wasn't the one who was literally being hunted by the government."

"That's not what I meant." Steve grimaces a bit, cups TJ's face and kisses him on the lips once. "I kept thinking... if they took you and threatened to hurt you, I'd surrender right away. They had to have at least considered it."

Again TJ blinks; the possibility hadn't even occurred to him. Suddenly some things become clearer – for example the fact that his mom kept asking, presumably on the urging of Pierce, who it turns out was HYDRA. "They... well, Pierce knew my mom. They worked together all the time. He had her ask me if you'd gotten into contact with me and she told me to tell her if you ever did. I didn't," he hastens to add. "I wouldn't have. But... they probably didn't because of her. Maybe they would have if they had had more time. But mom has a lot of weight, politically, they probably wouldn't have wanted to risk it right away."

"That makes sense," Steve agrees after a moment. "They might not have cared, but they probably figured, with Project Insight they'd soon be in control anyway. Still." He kisses TJ again, and then again, a bit longer this time. "And if you have to, tell them. In a situation like this, I'll only get into contact with you if it's safe – for you. I'll contact you in a way that can't be traced and I won't tell you any details, so you can tell them. Maybe not right away or they'll try to turn you into a spy, but you can tell them."

Offended, TJ immediately protests. "I won't! Do you think I'd-"

"This is for your safety," Steve interrupts, looking him straight in the eyes, gaze piercing. "TJ. I mean it. If anybody ever takes you and wants for you to tell them things, you tell them what you know. You do anything you can to survive, okay? I promise I'll come get you, but I need for you to be alive by the time I get there. Resisting is pointless, they'll just hurt you until you tell them anyway – and you will. Everybody does, eventually. If you don't die, you'll break, and for your sake I'd rather you bend, okay?"

This is serious. And not that this is the first time TJ has realized just what being with Steve entails – Steve did make sure within the first month that he really understood so that he could make an informed decision, which he had, and by which he stands – but it's nevertheless sobering. He swallows, and nods, if reluctantly. "Okay. I will."

Steve exhales, shoulders sagging a little like he'd really been worried about this still, and TJ can't help but wrap his arms around his neck, rise to his toes so Steve can lean against him at least a little. "I love you."

A little noise escapes Steve, something small and helpless, and suddenly he pulls TJ really close, wraps his arms tightly around him even though it has to hurt to push TJ against his bruises. "I love you too."

For a moment TJ lets it happen, but then he shifts a little, pulls away, and Steve immediately lets him go. He always does, like he's worried he's hurting TJ or will scare him if he doesn't. "Come on," TJ whispers, cupping Steve's face and pressing a brief kiss to his lips. "Do you want to shower before bed?"

"God, yes," Steve sighs and makes to get up, but TJ stops him with a hand on his chest.

"Then you need protection first." In the first-aid kit TJ finds the tape and plastic stuff that's a lot like cling wrap actually and cuts two pieces to cover Steve's biggest bandages, on his thigh and on his ribs. He sticks them on and very carefully tapes them up, making sure there's no crease anywhere in the tape. "Okay," he gives permission once he's sure the protection is water-tight. Sorting everything back in the first aid kit, he finds a sort of bruise treatment cream and picks that as well, for later.

Steve slips off the chair, expression tight though he doesn't grimace until he tries to bend down to pick up his suit and shield.

"Let me," TJ interrupts and picks the uniform, stiff with mud and blood, off the floor. The shield is, as always, heavier than expected; TJ has held it a handful of times and every time he's a little surprised, even though after the first time he should know. But Steve always handles it like it's made of aluminum or something when it really, really isn't.

Steve has never seen TJ's room here, so TJ leads the way. Bedroom door shut behind them, he gestures towards the bathroom, where he deposits Steve's shield and uniform on the floor – the latter doesn't look salvageable, but it also doesn't look like his normal uniform, so TJ isn't quite sure what to do with it.

He can think about it tomorrow. Steve slips out of his shoes, socks and underwear while the shower heats up, then gets inside, groaning when the hot water hits him. TJ himself doesn't really need it – he probably should change clothes, Steve got them all damp with what turns out to have been Potomac river water, which really, ew – but he doesn't hesitate one second, shrugging all his clothes off and joining Steve in the shower. It's certainly spacious enough for that.

Steve blinks at him for a second, then offers a sweet if tired smile.

"Hey," TJ says and rises up to his toes to give him a kiss, using the opportunity to reach past him to get the shower gel and loofah.

"Hey," Steve returns, leaning into him a little. "Is it okay that I'm here? I was just thinking, this is your mother's house, she probably won't be happy, right?"

"If she isn't, she'll get over it." Lathering up the sponge, TJ starts washing Steve, not his first time by far, but the first time he's grateful the loofah is so soft. "Though I don't think she'll mind. Maybe a little, I don't know, but she'd give permission if I asked. I'm not going to, though."

"You can," Steve offers. "I should lay low for a couple of days so things can settle down a little, but this is her house. I don't want to-" Silenced by TJ's finger on his lips, he blinks at TJ with wide blue eyes a shade darker than the ocean and all the more amazing for it, framed by unfairly long, thick eyelashes.

"Steve," TJ emphasizes. "Don't worry about it. She'll be okay with it, and to be honest, right now she probably has bigger problems. We're doing her a favor not telling her you're here. Besides, she probably figures I'll at least know where you are now that everything's settling down, but she hasn't asked. We'll go to bed now and sleep, and tomorrow I'll tell mom when she calls, or I'll call her at one point, but it's really not a problem, okay?"

"Okay," Steve agrees, lips brushing against TJ's fingers. He hasn't shaved today, possibly not yesterday either, but he must have shaved at one point the past couple of days, because he isn't scratchy enough not to have done so. Since he's blond it's not immediately visible, not that that means Steve ever skips shaving if he can help it, and it always sends a little thrill through TJ, feeling Steve's stubble. Like it's a secret side of Steve, something only for him. He doesn't think the number of people who get to see Steve unshaven is too great.

Hands careful, he spreads the soapy foam all over Steve's body, then shampoos his hair. Steve keeps his eyes closed and lets him, probably too tired to protest even if he were inclined to. While Steve rinses off in the hot water TJ quickly soaps himself down as well, and once they're both soap-free and clean he guides Steve out of the shower and into a big, soft towel. They don't go so far that TJ dries Steve off, but Steve does actually stop TJ when he makes to leave the bathroom and asks, "Hair?"

TJ meant to skip that for once, even though he doesn't like going to bed with wet hair (nor does he like for Steve to go to bed with wet hair; it's the damp pillows he finds repugnant), but Steve apparently doesn't want to, so TJ quickly blow-dries first Steve's, then his own hair, not caring how messy it turns out. Then he goes to find some boxers and a t-shirt for Steve to borrow, which isn't super easy, but he does manage to unearth a t-shirt that's too big for him which was probably meant for sleep anyway.

"Don't put those on just yet," he orders as he hands them over to Steve, sitting naked on the bed and waiting patiently, and goes to find the bruise cream. Steve doesn't say anything as TJ dabs the cream on the worst of his bruises, then removes the shower protection. While TJ is off to wash his hands Steve slips into the clothes and crawls into bed, waiting for him with the blanket pulled down, lying on his bed.

TJ turns all the lights off and crawls in after him, settles close by and takes Steve's hand. He's not sure how close he should get, normally they like to cuddle – Steve _loves_ to cuddle and TJ really loves that as much as he loves the cuddling itself – but Steve is injured and all he can think about is the bruises all over Steve's body that will hurt him if TJ gets too close.

"Hey," Steve murmurs, pulling TJ's hand close to press a kiss to the back of it. "Are you okay?"

That could almost make TJ laugh; he isn't the one whose life was constantly in danger and who was on the run the past couple of days, who came home injured and bruised all over. But he doesn't, laugh that is. There's nothing really funny about this. "Now that you're here," he says instead, squeezing Steve's hand where Steve settled their entwined fingers on his chest. "How about you?"

"Turns out all my life's work has been for nothing," Steve replies, unusually bitter. He's justified, though. "A lot of what I believed in turns out to have been a lie."

"That's not true," TJ immediately protests. He might not know much, but this he knows for certain. "What you believe in, that's not a lie. That's not wrong. You were misled and deceived by people you trusted, which is entirely different. It's awful, but it doesn't have anything to do with what you stand for and believe in. That's still true. Nobody can touch that or take it from you."

For a long moment, Steve is silent. TJ is starting to think he said something wrong or naive – compared to what Steve went through, with everything he experienced in very little time, especially considering that he's younger than TJ, TJ sometimes feels very naive. None of those things are experiences he wants to have gone through, not really, but sometimes he still wishes he had just so he could relate to Steve better, understand him more – so Steve would feel better understood. Which is a pretty awful thing to wish for, so he never mentions it out loud.

Then Steve says, into the darkness, "You're amazing, you know that?" His voice is rough, and he squeezes TJ's hand again.

Taken aback, TJ returns the pressure. He wants to protest, but that's not the sort of sentiment his therapist encourages and he and Steve actually have an agreement where TJ accepts that Steve really means the things he says to him and about him, even if TJ can't see where he's coming from at all. But since he still has a difficult time dealing with heartfelt, honestly meant compliments, he's kind of developed a strategy of how to react that nobody would disapprove of.

Squeezing Steve's hand again, he licks his lips and says, "I think you're amazing too, and I'm very glad I met you, and I love you."

"I love you too," Steve immediately replies.

"Okay," TJ whispers and pulls their hands over so he can press a kiss to Steve's. "Now sleep. Wake me up if you need anything, I mean it, alright?"

"Alright," Steve repeats, voice starting to slur a little bit as he lets himself fall asleep. "I will."

TJ stays awake for a bit longer, lying on his side with Steve's hand cradled to his chest, listening to Steve breathe, but eventually the stress and lack of sleep catch up with him as well and he sinks into a deep, dreamless sleep.

It's sometime in the middle of the night when he wakes up because he hears the bathroom door click shut; somehow Steve managed to get out of bed without waking him. For such a huge guy he really can move silently as a ninja if he wants to. Stretching up, TJ switches the bedside lamp on and lets his eyes get used to the light; by the time Steve is done and comes out of the bathroom he's sat up.

"Hey," Steve says with a faint smile, not looking overly surprised to see TJ awake.

"Hey," TJ replies, draws his legs in to make room when Steve comes to sit down on his side of the bed, leaning in to kiss him. His hand is warm as it cups TJ's face, his lips soft, and he looks a lot healthier than he did a few hours ago.

After a few somewhat short – well, at least not overly drawn-out – kisses Steve pulls away and smiles at TJ, his hand still cradling TJ's jaw. "I just wanted to say, you handled that incredibly. I didn't realize, I just wanted to see you and see if you're okay, but I probably shouldn't have shown up at your door like that and you were amazing."

"Don't be stupid," TJ protests immediately, taking Steve's other hand to tangle their fingers. "You can show up at my door no matter what. Actually I demand that you show up at my door whenever you need to see me or whenever you don't feel good, no matter what. That's what relationships are about, right? We're there for each other."

Steve's face is soft when he looks at him. "I'm really glad I have you."

"I'm glad I have you too," TJ replies and leans in for another kiss; he keeps it short though, leans away when Steve tries to chase him. "How are you feeling? Show me."

"Better," Steve shrugs, pulling up his shirt. TJ definitely isn't imagining that his bruises have gotten less. He's not going to check the cuts just yet, but hopefully they'll be better too. "And... I'm kinda hungry?"

TJ looks up, and half a year ago he would have been incredulous, considering the amount of food Steve ate just a couple of hours ago, but he's known Steve for a while now and Steve gets really self-conscious about that. Besides, all things considered, this isn't too surprising. "Okay, let's go make some food. Sandwiches okay? And grilled cheese is something I can do."

"Sounds great," Steve agrees, sounding relieved, and puts on the sweatpants and thick socks TJ finds for him. At home they might walk around in just underwear, but here TJ wouldn't be comfortable doing that. Not his mom's house, where she could conceivably show up anytime.

They find the kitchen as they left it, of course, but TJ refuses to let Steve clean anything up. His mom does pay someone to do that, after all, so TJ just puts all the dishes on one side of the sink and then gets out all the ingredients needed for grilled cheese. Since they won't be done right away he also finds some muesli and yogurt so there's something for Steve to eat in the meantime. The more food the better, really, and by this point TJ actually feels a little hungry too so he has a couple of spoonfuls; whenever Steve offers him one, really. Since Steve cottons on right away TJ probably ends up eating half his bowl in between grilling sandwiches.

Since apparently this will be a joint meal TJ prepares some more sandwiches for grilling and also finds some apples and bananas, because while calories are always a good thing for Steve, that doesn't mean he doesn't need vitamins and minerals.

They eat in relative silence, knees touching, and when they're done they wordlessly return to upstairs, where TJ dabs another round of bruise cream on Steve's purple-green skin. Then they return to bed, curling up together as much as they can, with Steve unable to lie on his sides and with TJ unwilling to rest his weight on him. They figure it out, though, with TJ curled up on his side, one hand resting on Steve's relatively unbruised hip, head settled on Steve's arm. He falls asleep to the sensation of Steve's fingers carding slowly through his hair.


	5. Recovery

In the morning they're woken up by his phone chiming. It's Doug, informing or maybe warning them that Elaine has returned for breakfast.

TJ stares at the text for a moment, then sighs. Yeah, they've made up, inasmuch as they needed to anyhow, but he's still not looking forwards to seeing his mom and having to explain Steve's presence to her.

"Do you want to stay here? I can bring you something up and mom will probably leave again soon anyway," he suggests, perfectly willing to do that.

"No, I'm coming," Steve declines immediately, sitting up with a grimace.

Frowning, TJ hovers close by, not sure what to do to make him feel better – there isn't anything he _can_ do, really, not for physical pain. "You really don't have to."

Steve glances at him. "I kind of do, TJ. This is your mother's house, and I already came here without her permission. I'm not going to actively hide from her, I can't do that."

TJ doesn't quite see it that way, but it's not worth arguing about, so he just shrugs and slides off the bed, slips into his discarded sweatpants. The ones he gave to Steve lie crumbled on the floor as well so he picks them up and holds them out, only for Steve to hesitate.

"Maybe I should put on some real clothes-"

Well, that's going a bit far. "Steve, no," TJ immediately protests. "Would you do that if my mother weren't here? Then don't do it just because she is. There's no reason to pretend, okay?"

Steve grimaces a bit, not exactly happy with that, but he gives in, pulls the sweatpants on with an expression made tense by the effort to keep it even.

Watching him, TJ frowns. "Is it just me or does it hurt more today?"

Steve's head flies up. "You're hurt? What-"

"Not me, you," TJ quickly interrupts. "It seems like you're hurting more than yesterday."

Settling, Steve shrugs uncomfortably. "It always does, I don't know. Maybe because the adrenaline's worn off or maybe it just takes a bit for the body to notice just how bad it's been hurt. Or... I don't know."

Why probably doesn't really matter, either. Unsure how he can help, TJ leans in to brush a soft kiss to Steve's lips, then takes his hand to tangle their fingers. "Let's get you some food."

"Always a good idea," Steve jokes and lets TJ lead the way downstairs towards the kitchen, where his mother and Doug are.

"Ah, TJ," Elaine says when he appears, then she looks past him and falls silent for a moment.

"Morning, mom," TJ replies like nothing odd is happening.

"Good morning, Madam Vice President," Steve greets her, squeezing TJ's hand a little. Elaine hasn't offered him first-name basis, instead wordlessly insisting on formal titles.

"Good morning," she replies after a moment, glancing at TJ, then lifting her eyebrow at Doug. That's all the reaction she allows herself to show, though; smoothly, she adapts to the situation like there's nothing unusual about it at all. "Have a seat," she offers, gesturing towards the chairs. "We have pancakes and eggs on offer."

"Sounds great, thank you," Steve replies, polite as always, and settles on a chair with barely a grimace. Then he realizes that there aren't any utensils set for a fourth person.

"Stay," TJ stops him with a hand hopefully on a part of Steve's thigh that isn't bruised. He goes to find a plate and silverware for Steve, a cup and then after some thought also a bowl, milk and muesli, just in case. Breakfast has been made with three people in mind, it probably won't be enough for a fourth, especially if that person is Steve with his heightened appetite.

Meanwhile, at the breakfast bar his mother and Steve go through some charade of small talk.

"How are you, Madam Vice President?" Steve asks. Privately, TJ thinks it's ridiculous that he can't call her by her first name, but that's on her, not Steve.

"I'm fine, thank you, Captain," Elaine says, as painfully polite as Steve is. "The Pentagon is in chaos, of course, I'm sure you're aware. What about yourself? You look a bit... bruised."

If she could see the full extent of it... as it is all she can see is the bruise on Steve's cheekbone and the small cuts from something, and more of the same on Steve's arms. TJ doesn't really want for her to see more than that.

"I'm okay," Steve predictably replies, "A bit banged up but nothing that won't heal soon."

Elaine nods at that, and TJ can't tell if she's being honest or polite when she says, "That's good to hear." Then again, his mother isn't cruel and she probably doesn't hate Steve, so it probably was honest. And then Elaine says, "So my security didn't mention you're here."

"Ah." Steve ducks his head a little. "That's because I didn't... let them know? Sorry about that, but I thought you probably didn't need to have to deal with reporters hounding your home as well."

"And you didn't want to deal with that either," Elaine points out, one eyebrow raising. "Do you trust my security so little?"

Ah geeze. TJ opens his mouth to put a stop to that, but before he can Steve is already replying, smile calm but expression unyielding. "Right now, the most loyal employee in the world would feel tempted knowing Captain America's location. Most people have retirement plans, and children they want to send to college." And then he offers TJ a honest, sweet smile as he sets down the acquired dishes on the counter in front of him. "Thank you."

Returning the smile, TJ sits in the chair next to Steve and hijacks the conversation before this painful game can continue. "How are things at the Pentagon, mom? Did you come home tonight?"

She looks tired, exhausted really, but he doesn't point this out. The smile she aims at him is honest at least, if small, so it can't be too horrible. "For a few hours, yes. Everything's in chaos, we're still trying to sort through the rubble – metaphorically as well as literally."

At the reminder of actual damage and likely dead and injured people – though Elaine at least refrained from mentioning that – Steve lowers his head.

"Sucks when Nazis infiltrate and ruin everything," Doug says, so sudden and surprising that for a moment all TJ can do is stare at him.

"Yes," Steve agrees after a moment, surprisingly calm. "It really does."

Doug nods, then turns to Elaine and asks her something about some person they're working with who apparently was HYDRA as well, thus distracting her and giving TJ and Steve some space.

Okay, so Doug is amazing and TJ loves him and he's going to buy him a boat or something. With all that money he's earning doing nothing. Write him a letter how great he is? Both? Both.

With Elaine occupied for now, TJ and Steve focus on eating. TJ takes his time, makes himself a bowl of muesli with some fruits while Steve eats their share of pancakes. He tries to argue but TJ won't let him.

And it turns out that Elaine doesn't have that much time anyway. She needs to get back, and it's only when she starts warning Doug about the reporters that TJ realizes that Doug is wearing a suit: he's going to go to work as well. Of course he is; he doesn't need to babysit TJ anymore.

TJ shoves the bitter, unkind thought away with force; Doug has been a great support and without him there TJ doesn't know what he'd have done. He certainly wouldn't be as well off now as he is, all things considered.

So Elaine and Doug get ready to leave. They hug TJ goodbye and shake Steve's hand, all polite, but before she exits Elaine has one last thing to say to him; "Captain Rogers, perhaps you might want to point out the security leaks so some more unsavory individuals can't break into my home without being caught."

TJ's mouth drops open, but Elaine is already leaving, and all Steve says is a compliant, "Of course."

Still feeling vaguely stunned and caught somewhere between anger and embarrassment and something like guilt – did she really have to do this, right now? It's not like Steve doesn't have enough to deal with, it's not like _she_ doesn't have enough to deal with – TJ turns to look at Steve, who just shrugs, calm and unconcerned. "She's right about that," he points out casually. "It is a security concern. Though it wasn't as easy as she implied."

For a moment TJ just looks at Steve, then he exhales and decides to let it go for now. Steve has told him more than once that he doesn't need to apologize for his mother's behavior, and he might even be right about that; it's definitely true that there isn't much TJ can do about his mother, one way or another. So he doesn't even try.

They finish breakfast and go back to bed, where TJ gently dabs more bruise cream on Steve's injuries and checks on the cuts that look a little better now. He puts new bandages and antibiotic cream on those too, and then they settle back into the pillows for more sleep. TJ isn't really tired anymore – he's more the type of tired that only a lazy day and another full night of rest can cure than prolonged sleep in one night. But Steve certainly needs it and TJ feels like he could just stay here forever, Steve safe in his bed, asleep and secure and getting better.

He dozes a bit himself and studiously avoids his phone – or rather, the internet. It won't have anything good to say and he just doesn't want to deal with any of it right now. More importantly: if he knows it he'll have to tell Steve and Steve very definitely doesn't need that right now.

Eventually Steve blinks his eyes open and peers at him. Caught, TJ just continues brushing his fingertips over Steve's fingers, skirting around the bruises and just feeling Steve's warmth.

Then Steve asks, "How are you?"

Incredulous, TJ looks at him. "How am I? I'm great. I'm not the one who got hurt, Steve. How are you?"

"No," Steve agrees. "I'm recovering. But how are you?" Palm twisting around, he captures TJ's hand and guides it to his mouth to press a soft kiss to the back of it. "How are you, TJ?"

The repetition makes TJ pause and consider the question – and then answer it honestly. "Getting there. I was pretty worried and didn't sleep much, my head feels a little stuffy, and I don't think I want to let you out of my sight anytime soon- why are we talking about me? Nothing happened to me, I'm fine, Steve."

"As far as you know you weren't in physical danger," Steve concedes, sitting up and leaning against the headboard so he can pull TJ close, wrap his arm around him. "But that doesn't mean nothing happened to you. Waiting is hard and stressful in its own way."

"Well, yeah, but still." Carefully, TJ leans his head against Steve's shoulder. The angle is awkward because he's trying not to rest his weight on Steve's ribs, but they find a way that's almost comfortable, with Steve's arm wrapped heavy and comforting around TJ.

For a while they stay that way, but it's not a comfortable enough position to really last. "More food?" TJ eventually suggests. He isn't hungry, but he figures Steve might be.

Sure enough, Steve nods. "I could eat."

They head downstairs to make more sandwiches, then settle in the living room to watch TV. The staff is in the house again, but they didn't come across anybody. Not that TJ usually does, as far as he knows there's some sort of rule about that sort of thing, but he doesn't pay much attention to that. He does have a brief phone conversation with the cook about what should be for lunch and dinner, and he requests enough food for four people each time because he has guests, plural, just in case. Steve will probably eat even more than he usually does until he's healed; it's been that way the last few times Steve got hurt in some way, though it's never been this bad.

They watch TV for a while, then TJ figures it's time for some more bruise cream.

"It's no big deal," Steve tries to deflect when he says as much. "It'll heal."

"I heal too, but bruise cream helps," TJ points out and goes to retrieve the cream from upstairs.

Or at least that's what he means to do. After locating it on the nightstand he turns around, tube in hand, and suddenly there's somebody in the room. A woman, red hair, and TJ startles, takes a step back before he recognizes her from the pictures – Natasha Romanov.

"Jesus," he gasps, clutching his pearls automatically. Embarrassed by the instinctive reaction, he lowers his hand again and covers it up by talking. "You couldn't have made some sort of noise?"

"Now I wouldn't be a good spy if I did that, would I?" She returns, one eyebrow raising. Her voice is surprisingly low, a dry sort of undertone to it. She is, of course, gorgeous, but TJ can see the shadow of a bruise on her temple, near her hair. Straightened, he assumes, remembering her curls from footage of her during the invasion. Her clothes are clean and aggressively casual, all things considered.

She's Steve's friend, if not an especially close one, but she's been with Steve when he was arrested so it stands to reason they're closer now. So TJ decides to overlook the breaking and entering and puts on a charming smile. "Not much to spy at around here. Hi, I'm TJ."

"I know." Something amused about her, she accepts his handshake. "Natasha."

"I know." TJ winks, then saunters past her because well, not that he minds gorgeous women showing up in his bedroom, they're sort of at the wrong address with him. He's looking to take care of his boyfriend. "Lunch is in half an hour, if you're hungry."

He heads downstairs again, and she doesn't follow right away, so she has a moment to think about this. She appeared here out of nowhere, presumably because Steve is here, but why didn't she go to him directly instead of showing herself to TJ first? And that's definitely what must have happened, he didn't stumble across her on accident.

She worked at SHIELD too, together with Steve, so just like him, her information will now be all over the internet. Including her addresses and everything. Maybe she's looking for a place to stay for a couple of days.

Well, there are enough rooms available here, so that's no problem.

"Hey," Steve greets when TJ returns to the living room, frowning and half sat up. "You were gone for a bit."

"I met your friend, Natasha," TJ informs him, settling on the sofa. "Shirt up."

"Natasha? Where?" Thoroughly distracted, Steve makes as if to get up for real.

TJ stops him with a hand on his shoulder – no pressure, due to the bruises, but he never needs to push Steve unless he wants to. Now as well Steve immediately stills and focuses on him. "Shirt off," TJ repeats. "Let me take care of your bruises, Steve."

For a moment Steve considers that, then he settles back down and pulls his shirt up. "But where is she?"

"I don't know," TJ replies truthfully and sets to dabbing the bruise cream on Steve's discolored skin. It's not getting any easier to see just how hurt Steve is, especially considering how much it must hurt.

"Geez," a female voice suddenly speaks from behind him. "You ever heard of ducking, Rogers? That's what you're supposed to do when someone tries to hit you. What do you even carry that huge walking target around with you for if you don't even know how to use it?"

"Thanks, Natasha," Steve drawls very dryly, eyes focused over TJ's shoulder. TJ keeps his focus on his task, trying to apply the cream with as little pressure as possible. "I was worried about you too."

She huffs and walks across the room, throws herself into an armchair to Steve's left. TJ glances at her and winks, then focuses back on his task.

"Didn't anybody teach you that getting hurt isn't a good way to catch a cute boy's attention?" Natasha continues.

Cute, is he now? It's been a while since he's been called that. Generally, for the past couple of years the best people saw in him was some adventure or a sort of "what happens in Vegas" situation.

"He already got my attention," TJ points out a bit absently. Done with Steve's front he shifts on the sofa so he can better reach his back. "Lean forwards, please."

Steve obeys, twisting a bit too so the angle isn't so awkward for TJ. "How is everyone?" he asks, and it takes TJ a second to figure out he's talking to Natasha.

"Shit's hitting the fan," Natasha replies bluntly. "Nobody's ever had to deal with anything like this. But you're lucky. For some reason Pierce kept your relationship out of the official SHIELD or HYDRA files, and I took care of his personal files."

"Thank you. Why would he do that, though? It's a pretty good opportunity to exploit, I was worried that they were going to do do something to TJ to get me to surrender."

"They might have," Natasha shrugs. "Pierce at least knew about it."

"My mother, probably," TJ adds, wiping his hand on his sweatpants as he sits back. "You're good, you can get dressed again."

"Thank you," Steve says with real gratefulness and no sarcasm in his voice. He slips his shirt over his head again and careful rolls it down, and then he captures TJ's chin and leans in to kiss him, soft and not overly long, but not short either. When they pull apart Steve asks, "What about your mother?"

TJ lifts one eyebrow. "She's about to become President. In possibly two, but definitely in six years she'll be sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office. Pierce probably thought twice about making her his enemy, and he didn't have the time to think thrice about it." Maybe he'd have reconsidered then, or maybe not. Since it all amounted to nothing anyway, it doesn't matter what might have been.

"You sound pretty sure about your mother becoming president," Natasha points out, one eyebrow raised.

TJ shrugs. "I don't need to be sure. I know it's going to happen. She knows it's going to happen. Barring some sort of bad scandal, it will happen. Depending on how the current President handles this whole disaster, it'll be sooner than expected, but nobody is going to be surprised when it does." She's not going to fail again. Everyone knows it.

"Good," Natasha nods, expression satisfied. "This country needs a woman at the head."

Since TJ is probably the least neutral person on the subject – he fully agrees, and he does believe his mother will be a good President, as she was a good Secretary of State and is a good Vice President – he only shrugs. Glancing at the time, he then changes topics. "Natasha, are you having lunch with us?"

Tilting her head, Natasha nods and smiles slowly. "I might as well."

"Good," TJ returns the smile. "Stay," he adds firmly when Steve makes as if to get up. "We're eating here. Don't move."

"Yes, sir, " Steve drawls, looking a bit amused, but he stays where he is. Grinning, TJ winks at him, then leaves for the kitchen.

As expected, he finds the potato gratin in the oven, looking nice and ready. The timer says there are still five minutes to go, so he preoccupies himself filling three glasses with iced tea. When he brings them over into the living room Steve and Natasha are silent, but TJ doesn't delude himself into thinking they don't have things to discuss while he isn't there, so he just smiles at them, sets the glasses down on the coffee table and leaves again.

To his surprise, Natasha gets up and follows him. "I will help you carry."

Surprised, TJ glances at her and smiles. "That's nice, thanks." He figures maybe she wants to ask him something, but when she doesn't, he casts his mind around for something to fill the silence with. "So how did you and Steve meet?"

"Well," she drawls. "There were these aliens invading New York..."

TJ lifts one eyebrow. "Really, that's the first time you met? Talk about first impressions!"

"Oh, we didn't much like each other at first," she replies, going unasked to gather silverware. "It was a rather high-strung situation."

"Naturally," TJ agrees, portioning gratin onto plates.

"Also Steve had only been awake for barely two weeks, so I didn't expect much from him."

Surprised, TJ pauses and looks up. "Really? For two weeks?" Two weeks out of the Second World War and he already has to go defend New York from aliens? On top of the whole culture shock and everything? That must have been a difficult situation to say the least.

"He didn't tell you?" Surprised, she lifts one eyebrow.

"Steve doesn't complain," TJ points out, going back to filling the plates. Steve gets a heaping one, of course, and for himself and Natasha TJ makes regular size portions. The remaining gratin he returns to the oven, in case someone wants seconds.

He's aware he's shutting the topic down, but this isn't something Steve likes talking about. The whole waking up in the new century in general, he gets asked about that all the time, so TJ doesn't really ask. How was Steve supposed to feel about that, anyway? Devastated, of course, and lost. What do people expect?

TJ doesn't ask about it, and he tries to refrain from asking the other sorts of questions reporters like to ask. He knows from personal experience that at one point you're just tired of being asked the same things over and over again, and with Steve, he's noticed that it's a good strategy to indicate that one is interested in hearing about something, then let him think about it for a while before he brings it up himself to talk about.

"That's right, he doesn't," Natasha agrees. She gathers her plate and all the silverware and leads the way back into the living room.

Steve has switched the TV off when they get there, which sort of defeats the point of eating in the living room but TJ doesn't comment, just hands Steve his plate and accepts his fork and knife from Natasha before sitting down.

"So how did you two meet?" Natasha asks once they're all sitting. "Steve never said." Pointedly, she's looking at TJ, clearly addressing the question to him.

Blinking once, TJ glances at Steve to gauge whether he hasn't told her for a reason, but Steve just shrugs, so he probably hasn't. "At the hospital," TJ thus tells her. "I was there for a week and one night he appears to pilfer the nurses' coffee."

"That you were already pilfering," Steve is quick to point out.

TJ rolls his eyes and waves that off. "Anyways. Something about me being a grumpy wreck must have been interesting enough for him to come back to visit me during daytime, and that's how things started."

"We were friends first," Steve adds. "We didn't start a relationship until half a year ago."

"You did tell me that," Natasha reminds him. "Though not until two months later."

Unconcerned, Steve shrugs. "So... what are your plans now? You've been outed pretty spectacularly on the internet."

Immediately Natsaha's nose wrinkles. "All those safe houses, compromised." It sounds like that's what bothers her most, but TJ, whose private life has been spread over the news since he was fifteen, certainly knows better.

He looks at her for a moment and makes a spontaneous offer. "Wanna stay here for a while?"

Looking surprised, she blinks at him; Steve too clearly didn't expect that. "Here?" Natasha repeats.

"With us," TJ clarifies, because he can't really offer his mom's home like that. He's still not sure how he feels about Natasha breaking in like that; it's different to when Steve did it. But she's Steve's friend and ally, stood by him when few others did, so he's going to offer her a safe space. "Nobody's going to expect to find you here. You can take a couple of days, figure out what to do. We've got the space."

"Is your mother going to be okay with that?" Steve asks before Natasha can say anything.

Probably not. "I meant at my house," TJ clarifies. "We're safe now, right? So we can go home. I don't have any employees to dodge either." Just the cleaning firm that comes in once a week, but it'll already have been there this week.

"I like that idea," Steve agrees after a moment. "Sorry, but I don't think your mother likes me much."

He probably isn't wrong about that. TJ grimaces, but that's not something he can think about right now; they have more important things to focus on. "Maybe," he grants, a bit reluctantly. "We can go after lunch, then. At least you have your own clothes at my place. Natasha, you can come with us, if you want."

"Alright," Natasha agrees after a moment.


	6. Home Sweet Home

They finish lunch, and then TJ stuffs Steve's stiff, filthy uniform into a bag together with the SHIELD. Since he didn't bring anything there's nothing he has to take away either; he resolves to call his mom to let her know before she gets home and then the three of them get into his car. Natasha and Steve both choose the backseat, more inconspicuous, and sink low in their seats as TJ approaches the gate. They stay that way while TJ drives through DC, the gated community and right until he gets into his garage. Only when the garage door shuts do they sit up and get out of the car.

"Nice place," Natasha comments as they walk through the house.

TJ smiles. "Thanks." His pride is warranted; he chose and decorated the whole house by himself, his first big project after the hospital. It was a good one too, creating his own space, everything arranged by him, something he did just for himself.

Well, the big shower he picked also with Steve in mind, but still. They've christened it thoroughly.

"Guest room's yours," he gestures Natasha towards the stairs. "Third floor." The house isn't big so he's only got the one guest room, but considering that this is the first time he actually needs it, that probably isn't too bad.

Since Steve is in the shower, washing off all the cream that made his shirt sticky, and Natasha is upstairs checking out her room and bathroom, TJ takes the opportunity to put on some tea while he calls his mother. He doesn't expect her to answer the phone; usually when he calls her during work it'll go to voice mail and she'll call him back when she has a moment, but she actually picks the call up. "Yes, TJ? Everything alright?"

"Yeah, yes, we're fine," he replies, taken a bit off-guard. "No, yes, everything's alright. I just wanted to let you know that we went back to my house."

"Oh, alright." Going by her tone of voice she's surprised by that, but TJ doesn't know why she would be. This was the first time TJ stayed at her place for so long since before the hospital.

Somehow it makes him feel like he should explain himself. "I figured it'd be safer so none of the staff can recognize Steve."

"That's actually a good idea," Elaine agrees. "So far nothing has come out yet about you two, but it's probably just a matter of time."

Right, she doesn't know yet. "Not really; apparently Pierce kept my involvement out of any official files and his private files..."

"Aren't available," Elaine takes over when TJ trails off; she sounds suspicious. "TJ, do you know anything about that?"

"No," TJ replies promptly.

His mother sighs. "Very well. Everything is still rather hectic here so I have to go back to work; we'll talk soon, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. Love you."

"Love you too, baby," she replies and hangs up.

Exhaling, TJ puts his phone down and then goes to check what his cupboards yield, food-wise. Since he was only gone four days – god, it's only been four days? It feels like so much longer – not much has gone bad, but he still probably needs to get some groceries. There's an unopened carton of milk, though, which is perfect, because he also still has some chocolate chip muffin mix, so he quickly mixes it all together and puts them in the oven. Twenty minutes and they'll have muffins, which work as a nice afternoon snack for tea.

He's just gotten out a big plate for the muffins and poured some tea into his mug when he hears soft footsteps; Steve appears, offering him a bright smile and a hug. "Hey."

"Hey," TJ returns softly, nuzzling into Steve's neck a little but not returning the hug. He does lean a little bit into Steve, but he doesn't dare put his arms around him, what with how injured he is.

"You good?" Steve checks in after a moment, without letting go of him.

"Yeah," TJ sighs and rises to his toes, presses his lips to Steve's. As always, the kiss is welcomed and TJ carefully curls his fingers into the short hair at the back of Steve's head, where he knows he hasn't got hurt. The kiss stays gentle and soft but they draw it out, for the first time since Steve got back. It settles something in TJ, and he realizes that things really are okay. Steve is back, and he's fine; the all-encompassing fear he spent yesterday and the days before in doesn't seem distant now but muted.

He's not stupid; he knows that right now they're in a sort of bubble but pretty soon reality is going to burst it. Steve can't just brush the whole thing off, in more than one ways. This issue with HYDRA will come back to them and they'll have to deal with it.

But not right now. Right now they can take a couple of days, wait for it all to settle down and relax, take a deep breath.

"Free show included with the room?" Natasha drawls from the doorway.

With a regretful sigh Steve pulls away, though he does keep one arm around TJ's waist as he turns around, hand on TJ's hip so he remains close in Steve's personal space. "So you're staying?"

She shrugs. "Why not? Might as well. And someone's got to keep an eye on you while you're incapacitated."

"I'm not incapacitated," Steve protests.

TJ frowns. "You're not?" He'd say Steve is very much incapacitated. Just remembering all the deep bruises all over his torso makes his frown darken even more; he tangles his fingers in Steve's shirt and holds on tight, the only place he dares to.

Steve looks at him, thumb rubbing soothingly up and down his hip. "Not in the way she's implying. I could keep you safe if I had to."

In a show of not overly great timing, the oven chooses that time to start beeping, announcing that the muffins are ready.

"You don't have to," TJ tells Steve. "You just need to heal. Everything else is for later." Then, reluctantly, he pulls away and presses the button to make that terribly shrill noise stop, gets the muffins out. Immediately the smell of freshly baked dessert fills the kitchen; TJ peers at the muffins, but they look like they're done, a perfect golden brown. To be safe he pokes a fork into one, and yes, they're done.

"You baked?" Natasha asks, suddenly right next to him.

TJ shrugs. "It's a mix. Steve, no, I'll get that, sit down."

By the fridge, Steve rises one eyebrow, butter in hand. "I can-"

"No," TJ interrupts, a little more forceful. "Sit down. Please."

So maybe TJ isn't perfectly fine. Steve got out okay this time, yes, but what if he hadn't? He didn't want to see a doctor either and if anything too bad happened to him TJ figures by this point they would know, but still. He'd feel better if Steve would stay in bed, preferably in a hospital with medical professionals on hand to take care of him, but since that's out of the loop, they'll have to make do.

"Alright," Steve agrees after a moment and sits down.

Natasha takes the fork from TJ and doesn't comment, doesn't even look at anybody; she just starts taking the muffins out of the baking sheet and onto the plate, ready and waiting. Since she's taking care of that TJ can get the plates and silverware and put them on the table. His mind is already on the tea and the mugs Natasha and Steve are going to need, but before he can retrieve that Steve's hand is on his hip, stopping him mid-turn.

"Hey," he says softly and carefully pulls TJ close by his hand. "I'm fine." Squeezing his hand, Steve looks up at TJ, eyes earnest and so very blue.

TJ can never resist those eyes. Not that he ever felt inclined to, fortunately. He leans down to kiss Steve, then lean their foreheads together for a moment. "I just... you're hurt."

"This isn't the first time," Steve reminds him, and TJ doesn't want to think about that, all those times where Steve was injured and there wasn't anybody to take care of him. How often did he just not bother to see a doctor? Was there ever anybody there to bring him something to eat or drink when it hurt to move, to help him wash when he couldn't reach without pain?

TJ is pretty sure there hadn't been. Steve is reluctant, almost obstinate about accepting help and TJ just can't imagine that he'd accept it from just anyone. Sam, perhaps, but they've been friend for less than a year. Before that... nobody.

"Sugar?" Natasha asks behind them.

Reluctantly, TJ opens his eyes and pulls away from Steve, straightens and turns around. She has her back turned on them, looking into cupboards.

"Next one," TJ tells her. "In that- yeah, that one."

They assemble the rest – cups, milk, sugar, the can of tea, the plate of muffins – and then they sit down.

"I can't remember the last time I had homemade muffins," Natasha tells them as they each take a muffin onto their plate. They're still hot so TJ uses his fork to disassemble his, gets some butter to melt on the steaming pile of crumbs. Doug would probably have some choice things to say about this, but Doug isn't here right now, and to his left Steve is slathering his muffin with butter as well, so there.

"It's just a mix," TJ says again, a bit embarrassed. He's tried to make proper homemade ones too, once or twice, but the first time he got the temperatures wrong and they turned crispy brown on the outside, almost raw on the inside. The second time went better and he wants to try again, but there certainly wasn't the time for that now.

"Still." Blowing air onto a piece of cupcake that she cut off with her fork like a cake, she looks at him, one eyebrow raised. "It's sweet."

TJ isn't _sweet_. If anybody could hear her say that, they'd probably laugh until they fell off their chair. But he's unwilling to correct her, so he just ducks his head, flushes.

"They're really good," Steve offers. He'd called TJ's second attempt at proper homemade muffins "amazing", and the first attempt "not bad" even though it plainly had been. _Steve_ is the sweet one.

"They are," Natasha agrees. "So, what do the two of you do around here? Since it doesn't involve going outside much."

Okay, so TJ doesn't know what she's implying there but it feels like she's implying something. He smiles at her, wide and fake, and says, "Well, we like to fuck on this table."

"TJ," Steve groans, covering his face with one hand for a moment. His cheeks have turned a fetching pink color when he looks up again. "We do indoor things, Natasha."

"Like sex," TJ can't refrain from emphasizing.

"That too," Steve concedes with something of a resigned sigh.

"Well," Natasha says, one eyebrow rising; she looks amused. "Do you have cards or something? Unless you're planning to let me watch I'm not gonna be involved in the sex."

Steve just sighs again, resigned. "No watching."

For a brief second TJ considers an innuendo or two – he wouldn't mind her watching, but when he thinks about joking about letting her join he abruptly realizes that actually... he doesn't want that. It's a startling thought; she's gorgeous, very sexy, and Steve of course is too. A year ago TJ would've wanted the two of them in his bed. But now the thought of sharing Steve is completely out of the question. He doesn't want that, that's the last thing he wants. Even just to joke about it is inconceivable.

So instead he says, "We got cards and some board games." Before Steve, it'd been two decades since TJ last touched a board game, but Steve likes having the real thing instead of an electronics version. TJ wouldn't have thought so, but they're surprisingly fun. Now he doesn't see much difference between playing them on tablets or having them on the table, so he doesn't mind following Steve's preference.

"Board games," Natasha says, much like TJ probably had the first time Steve had suggested it. Before Steve, TJ honestly hadn't known all the types of things two people can do together that don't involve getting naked. Not that they don't get naked. TJ very quickly developed a strategy towards winning Monopoly that involves sexual favors to repay his depth instead of actual fake money. But, as much fun as finding a way to cheat is, playing the games by themselves still is surprisingly interesting.

And Steve loves them. That's how the three of them end up in the living room, playing board games. "Be careful, he cheats," TJ warns as they settle down. It earns him a skeptical look from Natasha – she's in for a surprise then; TJ had been surprised as well, the first time. Captain America isn't supposed to cheat. Steve Rogers, however... well. He's just a normal guy in his mid-twenties. Who cheats.

" _He_ cheats," Steve corrects him automatically.

Both of TJ's eyebrows rise on their own accord. "I'm not gonna do that with her here, Steve!"

That's when Steve realizes what he just implied; he looks up, blinks, and flushes. "No. Sorry."

"I think I know what type of cheating you mean, then," Nasha drawls, clearly amused, though it's impossible to tell at whose expense.

Either way, TJ winks at her and says, "Strip Monopoly."

"Not today," Steve quickly disclaims while Natasha huffs a laugh.

The game is fun, though it quickly becomes obvious that Natasha is an absolute shark. Steve seems more resigned than surprised about that, and when Natasha acquires Park Place, TJ huffs.

"So I'm definitely not playing poker with you."

She looks up and winks at him. "Probably a good life choice."

"Definitely," Steve agrees full-heartedly.

Natasha wins, to exactly nobody's surprise. They play a card game afterwards, which is where Natasha actually does find out that Steve cheats; she seems to find this highly amusing. Actually she looks delighted, grinning widely. "How did I not know this about you, Rogers?"

"It's the face," TJ opines. "You look into those baby blues and think butter wouldn't melt in his mouth."

She laughs. "This is so much more fun, though."

Over the course of the afternoon and into the evening, TJ gets to know Natasha a bit better. She seems nice; sarcastic and sometimes a bit sharp, she seems to like poking people to see how they react, but not to the point where she actually annoys them, or even intends to. TJ doesn't think he's ever met anyone like her before, but that's not much of a surprise, really.

It's when dinner time rolls around – dinner at seven; his therapist suggested having a solid schedule throughout his day and TJ's found to his surprise that he likes what he would have thought he'd find confining – TJ abruptly realizes that he didn't get any groceries. It's not a huge disaster, he does have enough food, but still.

"Let's order groceries before I forget again," he tells Steve and collects his tablet. Wordlessly, he hands it over to Steve; they do this at least once a week, with TJ having Steve add everything to the grocery list that he wants to eat, TJ adding what he wants to eat, and then he has it delivered. At first Steve was strangely reluctant about it, like it was a big deal or like he was putting TJ out requesting too many items, but by this point he knows that's not the case.

So Steve adds everything to the list he can think of, and then TJ gestures for him to hand the tablet over to Natasha. "If there's anything you'd like, just add it to the list."

"You get them delivered?" Natasha asks as she takes the tablet, already scrolling through Steve's list. "That's a security risk."

Steve shakes his head and explains, "Deliveries go only as far as the gate. Then the security people take over. They're a good firm, well-trained, lots of ex-military."

One of the reasons why Steve had really liked this choice of TJ's. They'd discussed the pro and cons of the five places TJ had been deciding between, but they'd all had their safety measures, of course, and Steve didn't try to convince TJ either way. To this day TJ doesn't know if Steve had a favorite choice and if TJ picked it; he never asked and Steve never indicated anything. TJ still marvels at that; his family certainly all had their choice things to say about every option he was considering.

While Natasha is still looking through the tablet TJ's phone rings; it's his dad. "Be right back," he murmurs, picking up as he leaves the living room and settles in the kitchen. "Hey dad."

"TJ, my boy!" his dad bellows into the phone. "I heard about that crap that's been going on. Figures, as soon as I leave the country everything goes to hell."

"Right, dad," TJ rolls his eyes. "How are you? How's Thailand?" Come to think – "Why are you awake? Isn't it like nine in the morning right now?" That's normally around the time when his dad wakes up, and then he first has the comfortable routine of a retiree including an excessive breakfast and newspapers. He certainly doesn't socialize before eleven.

"Infernal birds won't let me sleep," his dad complains. "Been up for an hour. Your granddad died in 'Nam so maybe it's strange to vacation here, but a white beach is a white beach, eh? But tell me, how are you doing? I'm thinking about coming back."

"I'm fine, dad, why do you want to come back?" A bit uncomfortable, TJ picks a few crumbs off the table. His dad still hasn't gotten used to the fact that he is not officially needed for anything anymore. Oh, he has contacts and still does things, like functions and fundraising for various charities, but politically... once you've been to the top there's not really anywhere else to go.

His dad snorts. "Can't really lie around on the beach, slurpin' cocktails, while my country's going to shit, can I? So I heard about what happened with your man and how they still haven't found him, how are you doing, really? Are you with someone right now?"

Unwittingly, TJ smiles. It might not seem that way and he has a hard time of showing it, but his dad really does care. Of course, he's the one who found TJ that last time, so TJ gave him quite the scare too. He's still sorry about that. "I'm not alone, dad, and my man is okay too."

That's all he'll say on the matter. Bud huffs a bit, impossible to tell whether he understands or not, but he doesn't ask any more questions about that. Instead, he asks something surprisingly insightful. Or perhaps not so surprising, after all – Bud Hammond certainly isn't stupid. "Is he okay? 'Cause if a soldier trusts anyone it's his CO's and comrades, and turns out a huge chunk of of them were filthy liars and traitors. Nobody'd be okay after that, TJ."

For a moment TJ just breathes. His voice is quiet when he agrees. "Yes, that's true."

"I'm just thinkin', you tell him that doesn't mean anything in the big scheme of things, will you? Sure, it seems huge now, and maybe it is, but in a year it'll all be fixed, and getting there is not as hard as it seems."

Honestly caught off-guard, TJ blinks. "I- yeah, I'll tell him that, dad. Thank you."

"Not for that, not for that," his dad grumbles, a bit uncomfortable. "Now, I gotta go, find a shotgun or something to shoot those goddamn birds. You watch out for yourself, alright, son?"

"I will, dad. Bye." TJ finds himself smiling as the call disconnects. For a moment he stares at his dad's picture on the phone screen until it goes dark again. Still smiling faintly, he returns to the living room, where Steve is mixing the deck of cards and Natasha is nowhere to be found.

As he sits down next to Steve, TJ looks around. "Where's Natasha?"

"Bathroom," Steve replies.

"Ah. My dad wanted me to tell you... to quote, this doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things and maybe this seems huge now but in a year it'll all be fixed, and getting there is easier than it seems."

Steve blinks. "Your dad wanted you to tell me that?"

"Yeah." Smiling, TJ takes Steve's hand and leans back a little, tangles their fingers. "He said to tell you that. He was worried about you – about me too, but also about you. About both of us. He likes you."

It's not a huge surprise, but still a bit of one. The two dinners Steve had had with his family – always with his dad present as well, of course – his dad had let Elaine do most of the initial talking, but once she let up a little he smoothly took over. Since his dad is about as American as they come he'd always seen Captain America as a role model, and it seems even Captain America screwing his son didn't change much about that in the end. Which is not to say that Bud hadn't had a few warning words to say to Steve. TJ had been pretty sure that his dad nevertheless likes Steve, whereas Steve had been more inclined to assume the worst. Clearly, TJ had been right and Steve hadn't.

Surprised but pleased, Steve smiles. As he says, "Tell him thank you from me?" Natasha returns.

"Of course." Smiling, TJ squeezes Steve's hand once, then focuses on Natasha. "What would you like to have for dinner?"

Looking surprised, she asks what's on offer, and since TJ doesn't know they head into the kitchen to check out the options. In the end they make a simple meal of peas, potatoes and fish fingers, talking about inconsequential stuff.

At the beginning, anyways. It's when they're done with the food preparation and everything is being cooked or in the oven; all that's left for them is to set the table and wait until everything is read. Completely out of nowhere, Natasha asks, "So what have you read about me?"

TJ looks up from the silverware drawer to blink at her. "About you?" Then he realizes what she's alluding to and pauses. "You mean, what that I've read do I believe about you. Nothing. I make a point of not believing anything I read in the press." He fishes knife, fork and dessert spoons three each out of the drawer and closes it with a hip check. "As you may know, I'm very familiar with the press and I know just how small the chance is that they actually are right, even just a little." Raising one eyebrow to challenge her dubious expression, he leans against the counter and meets her gaze head-on. "Why, is there anything you want for me to know?"

For several silent moments she just looks at him. Then, very directly, "No."

"Alright." TJ shrugs and pushes off the counter, sets about placing the silverware on the table. "I think the potatoes should be ready now. Can you get the plates? They're in that cupboard over there."

After another moment during which TJ practically feels her gaze rest on him, he hears the cupboard door open, and then the clang of porcelain.

Neither of them ever brings it up again.

The potatoes are ready so he drains them, puts them in a bowl, the peas in another. As far as Steve is concerned the fish fingers could do with another couple of minutes, he likes things crispy, but technically they're ready too. TJ leaves them in for a moment longer and goes to collect Steve, who's sitting on the sofa, reading a book. When they return to the kitchen Natasha has taken the fish fingers out of the oven as well and put them on a plate that she put on the table.

"Thanks for cooking, guys," Steve aims at both of them as he sits down; he doesn't grimace but TJ saw him flinch when he got up from the sofa and thus isn't fooled.

"I helped peel potatoes," Natasha informs him.

"With a real knife," TJ adds. "I can only do it with the thingy." He gestures towards the dishwasher. Peeling potatoes was not part of TJ's childhood education; in fact he's never done it until Steve came into his life. Steve, who in fact did grow up peeling potatoes, and lots of them. It shows; he can peel a whole potato without putting the knife down once, and he peels them so thinly too. Never would TJ have imagined he'd ever pay attention to, much less envy somebody's ability to peel a potato, but somehow seeing how good Steve is at it makes him feel like that's an important life skill he has so far failed to learn. Not that it's the first, so there is that.

After dinner they watch a movie, and then, since Natasha excuses herself to bed, they retire to the bedroom too. This is when Steve finally tells TJ exactly what happened, what he did in the time he was on the run. It's nauseating how many times his life was in danger; one time he was in a building that got bombed by fighter jets. Feeling sick and helpless, TJ squeezes Steve's hand and says, "You're not indestructible, Steve."

"I know that." Calmly, Steve meets his eyes, and it's then that TJ realizes that this is how it's going to be. Steve doesn't endanger his life willfully, but his life is endangered frequently anyway. There's nothing TJ can do about it, and nothing Steve will do about it – in a way, he can't. Steve just isn't the person not to do something if he's able to do it and feel like he should do it. Hell, from the few stories of his childhood and adolescence Steve has told, he even is the person to try to do something even if it's beyond his abilities simply because he feels it's the right thing to do. That's the way it is.

TJ swallows, and accepts that. "Alright."

Going by the weak smile Steve gives him, trailing off quick, he knows what TJ is thinking. "I'm sorry."

Quickly, TJ shakes his head. "This isn't something you have to or should apologize about, Steve." He leans in for a kiss, soft and lingering, and when he pulls back, Steve's taste on his lips, he murmurs, "I love you. Just always keep that in mind, alright?"

"Alright," Steve whispers, eyes squeezing shut for a moment. When he blinks them open again the lashes are a little wet. "I love you too. I don't deserve you."

Now that's just bullshit. "You deserve everything," TJ disagrees firmly and leans in for another kiss, and this one doesn't stop, turns heated, might have led to something else, but Steve can't suppress a flinch when he sinks to his back and pulls TJ on top of him, TJ's body resting on his ribs, and TJ immediately scrambles off him, horrified that he forgot.

"Shit, fuck, I'm sorry." He captures Steve's hand, already reaching for him, and presses a kiss to the back of it. "Does it hurt bad? Are you sure painkillers don't help? I can get you prescription ones if you want them."

"Only the addictive kind in big doses helps," Steve tells him, voice still a little strained.

That shuts TJ up fast. The doctors he can ask probably wouldn't give him those – it's not like his issues are much of a secret, and his mother likely has informed them, not that TJ is eager to confirm that – and the less than legal ways he could use to get them... well, to keep himself cut off from those is why he got a new phone number less than a week ago. He could, he would, if Steve really needed them, but on the other hand, if it's that bad Steve should actually see a doctor and get them the legal way. Which he refuses to.

"Alright." Exhaling, TJ meets Steve's eyes. "Just promise me that you will go see a doctor if you need to and get painkillers if you need to. I'm not going to jump you and rip them out of your hands."

"I know," Steve hastens to reassure him. "And I promise."

With that, neither of them being up for much, they settle down and sleep.


	7. Meetings

It's the first full, truly restful night of sleep TJ has gotten in about a week; he awakes curled up on his side, both arms wrapped around Steve's arm, forehead pressed into his biceps. When TJ stirs Steve does as well, clearly awake already, and they share a sleepy morning kiss. The morning continues on in that manner, sedate and slow, until they're sitting at the kitchen table over breakfast consisting of waffles and toast and Natasha comes in.

She's not alone; there's a guy with her, blond and really quite handsome, if a little banged-up. If TJ weren't already in a relationship with an even more attractive guy he'd... but he doesn't know the stranger, even if TJ is pretty sure he's one of the Avengers, Hawkeye. Though as with Natasha, the only footage of him available had been blurry mobile phone pictures and videos, so it's hard to be sure. But one thing is obvious: the guy clearly spent the night, in boxers and t-shirt and bed-head.

"Mornin'," he slurs.

"Morning, Clint," Steve replies, something resigned in his tone.

Well. One eyebrow raised, TJ first looks at the guy, then at Natasha behind him, hair in a messy ponytail and otherwise looking unfairly put together, considering that those look like her sleeping clothes. "It'd be really awesome if you'd let me know that you want to invite somebody into my house." Apparently he shouldn't have let her showing up unannounced at his mom's house pass without comment. He hadn't really been inclined to say something about it, too relieved to have Steve back and also pretty sure that she'd helped keep Steve safe while he was on the run (something which he knows for certain now), but apparently that had sent a wrong message.

The blond guy, Clint, freezes in his step, looks first at TJ, then at Steve, then turns around to look at Natasha, who is looking at TJ. TJ looks back evenly and waits.

"I'm sorry," Natasha eventually says, after glancing at Steve. "It was late and I didn't want to wake you."

Right. "Well, now you know better next time," TJ replies. Then he pointedly turns to focus on Clint, getting to his feet and walking over to shake his hand. "Hi, I'm TJ Hammond."

"Clint Barton," Clint automatically replies, shaking his hand. He looks uncomfortable, though it's hard to tell why exactly. "Sorry about that, I didn't know..."

Well, he could have asked Natasha about it before entering somebody else's house, or said something, but it's not really his fault. TJ shrugs and smiles a bit wryly, sits back down in his chair and gestures towards the stack of waffles and toast with different types of things to put on them: they're doing breakfast vaguely continental style today. "Have some breakfast. You know where the plates and silverware are." There is already a setting out for Natasha, but of course Clint needs his own as well.

Things are a bit awkward as they sit; nobody speaks, but Steve puts his hand on TJ's thigh after a moment. Whether it's some sort of message or just physical contact TJ doesn't know, but when he turns his head to look at him Steve smiles. Returning the smile, TJ leans in for a quick kiss before he focuses back on his food.

The awkward silence sort of persists; not ostensibly, Steve starts making smalltalk with Clint, asking him how he is, where the bruises are from, that sort of thing. But TJ and Natasha both remain silent.

He doesn't know what's going on here, but clearly something is. Is she being territorial over Steve somehow? Showing TJ who's boss? Not knowing her at all, he has no idea in the slightest. But something is definitely happening. Maybe she's testing him, but he has no idea what she's looking for or why.

After everyone has eaten TJ puts one hand on Steve's shoulder to stop him from trying to get up and help and rises to his feet himself, careful not to put any weight on Steve's shoulder. But as he reaches for his plate, Steve puts a hand on his wrist to stop him.

"Leave it. You made breakfast, Natasha and Clint can do the dishes."

"It was really good," Clint earnestly tells him after a moment.

TJ smiles at that. "Thanks." Then he glances at Steve, who might or might not be trying to tell him something with his eyes, and agrees. "Alright. Let's go to the sofa, then."

Steve doesn't look overly enthusiastic at the prospect – he's not the type of guy who can't sit still, but he still needs a little activity in his day and this near-bedrest has got to grate. But he doesn't complain (of course he doesn't), just settles in his corner with a resigned air.

Which reminds TJ of something, actually. "Wait a minute, I've got something for you."

In his music room on the piano waits the bag he just remembered. He got it when he was out the second day after Steve left for work, just meandering through the city center. There he'd come across this art supplies store, and he just had to go inside. The clerk there gave him good advice on what type of paper and pencils to get, and while TJ is a little bit nervous about giving them to Steve, he's not nervous enough to just hide them.

"What's this?" Steve asks curiously when TJ hands him the nondescript, white plastic bag.

"Look inside," TJ suggests as he sits down.

Steve does, and goes entirely still when he recognizes what TJ got.

Biting on his lower lip, TJ hastens to explain. "It's not, like... it's just a suggestion. But you said you'd like to go back to drawing, you haven't really done much of it since you got here so I thought I'd get you the supplies. You don't have to use them right now, or ever if you don't want to. It's just... a suggestion."

That's when Steve looks up. He looks stunned, but not in a bad way. For a moment he just stares at TJ; then he swallows and reaches out with one hand. When TJ reaches out in return Steve captures his hand and pulls him close into a kiss, plastic bag crinkling between them.

"Thank you," Steve whispers when they pull apart. For a moment it seems like his eyelashes are wet but the next moment TJ wonders if he was imagining that.

He's not someone to underestimate how much their art can mean to a person. He loves playing the piano, has been playing since he was a six year old and even that time when it was painful, after he realized he'd never be allowed to make a career out of it, not that he was good enough for that anyway, he still had played. Even when it hurt it was an escape, a release, a way to live out a tiny bit of himself without feeling like he was being watched and disapproved of.

Steve stopped drawing. More than once he mentioned that he used to love art, would sketch every day, but that he stopped and then never took it up again. TJ had figured that maybe that meant he grew out of that hobby, it happens all the time, but maybe he'd been wrong about that.

Not that he hadn't had that suspicion. He wouldn't have been so nervous about giving the supplies to Steve otherwise.

"So..." TJ clears his throat. "Want to watch Netflix?" No actual TV; they don't need to deal with the news just yet. Or ever, is TJ's preference, but that one probably isn't feasible.

Shortly afterwards Clint and Natasha join them, now dressed. "Cheery," Clint comments when he sees they're watching a crime show.

"I want to see you watch a comedy with bruised ribs," Steve fires back.

"Point," Clint concedes with a grimace and slouches into a corner of the loveseat, Natasha taking the other corner.

They watch for a while, but not religiously; TJ has his phone out and is checking out his social media feeds. It's high time he updates his instagram, and his twitter could use some attention as well. Usually he posts a picture every couple of days, tweets even more often, but the past couple of days he really had other things on his mind. It's part of his media presence though, and part of his position in the family – his accounts aren't focused on that, but he is responsible for showing the private side of his family, make them seem real and close instead of remote and aloft. He's got a couple of PR-correspondent approved pictures ready in his designated folder, so he selects one of him and Doug in t-shirts, Doug's arm around his shoulder, TJ's around his waist. They're grinning into the camera, a selfie that's not at a perfect angle and honestly TJ looks kind of dorky, but that's part of the point. "when everything's going shit, remember your loved ones. ♥ u bro, ur the best" he captions the picture and posts it, tagging Doug's instagram that mostly consists of formally dressed politicians and scenery shots because Doug fancies himself a bit of an artist. Then he switches to twitter and tweets, "so everything went to hell in a handbasket, but America's been there before. we're the type to come up swinging, aren't we?". That one's probably going to get quoted in the news at one point, along with other "celeb" tweets. Though TJ's biggest claim to fame recently is his family, that's still good enough for most news stations, especially when they'll be desperately grasping for more material.

And even if TJ hasn't been all that prominent or exciting the past couple of months, he still has a lot of followers and the replies start pouring in immediately. He answers a few of them, then exits out of both apps. Suddenly he realizes that he's been pretty focused the past twenty minutes or so, and at one point while TJ was distracted Steve got out his new sketchbook and the pencil case, and now he's sketching.

For a moment all TJ can do is stare at him, unfamiliar pose with his knees pulled up to rest the sketchbook against, expression focused and intent, a slight frown furrowing his brows. When Steve notices the attention he glances up and meets TJ's eyes, smiles. TJ smiles back, and Steve focuses again on his sketchbook.

Quietly happy, TJ focuses back on his phone, sending a couple of texts out, one in reply to the PR correspondent, a simple "good job". He's still not sure if she's being condescending when she does that or considers it positive reinforcement, or if that's her way of staying close to her clients or whatever. He doesn't care much. His mother will probably reply in an hour or so, and his dad informs him that he's still in Vietnam. Somebody apparently convinced him that he won't be able to do much anyway even if he does come back. There are only five days left to his vacation anyway.

Doug texts him a simple "<3 u too" that nevertheless makes TJ smile. In this family they're not the type for being emotional and saying things like that without some sort of appendix. "I love you, but...", "you know you're important to me but...", which generally doesn't leave one feeling overly loved or cherished. It's something TJ brought up with his therapist, he'd been complaining about it really, and she, totally stumping him for a moment, suggested that maybe he could start. "People don't know what you want until you let them know," she'd pointed out, "and maybe you can show them."

They still don't talk about everything, of course not. There is still a lot of pressure, but TJ has learned better ways to deal with it and how to not let it crush him. And he has made a few, small overtures, like the one towards his brother just now via instagram. It's progress, and it makes him feel good.

Noticing the time, he gets up to get a leftover muffin from yesterday for Steve as a snack and soda for everyone. Steve doesn't seem to be as hungry anymore as he was initially when he got back, but a snack is generally never a bad idea where Steve is concerned. Muffin in hand, TJ deposits the glasses and bottle he brought on the coffee table, then sits down and watches Steve for a moment, not sure if he should interrupt. He looks pretty focused, and TJ really is reluctant to distract him from something he's been meaning to do for neigh on two years.

Before he can make a decision one way or the other Steve, probably noticing the scrutiny, looks up. TJ immediately holds out the muffin towards him like an offering or an apology.

"Thanks." With a surprised smile Steve puts his sketchbook aside and takes it. After eating a bite he breaks off a piece and holds it out to TJ, who instead of taking it leans in and eats it out of Steve's hand. What? He doesn't want to get his hands dirty if he's going to be touching his phone, he hates having fingerprints all over the screen. That's totally his only reason for doing that.

Steve raises one eyebrow, opens his mouth to say something and TJ would just love to know what that would have been, but he doesn't find out because right in that moment a phone rings. It's Natasha's, a generic, shrill sort of ringtone, the type most people get rid of as soon as possible. 

It's just a phone, but Steve tenses up, focus snapping to her like he expects trouble; when TJ looks over Clint doesn't look overly relaxed anymore either. The TV's on mute now and everybody listens to Natasha's one-sided, mono-syllable conversation, consisting mostly of "yes" and "okay" and, at the end, an "I'll talk to them." Without a word, she hangs up the phone and looks at Steve. "That was Tony," she reports. "The Avengers are in deep shit. People have found out about Bruce, about me, about Clint and you, and accusations are thrown around about us working for HYDRA."

Who would actually believe that, though, TJ wants to burst out. Any group that Captain America is part of would never willingly, knowingly work for HYDRA. But unfortunately he's very familiar with the way the press and media work, so he's not as surprised as he'd like to be.

Steve isn't either. His mouth tightens, expression darkening, but all he says is, "What does Tony suggest?"

"That we all meet up and discuss strategy," Natasha replies promptly. "He hired a PR team for us and we need to make a statement to the press as soon as possible. He has a few ideas, but we should discuss this in person. He already sent a plane; we can go to the airport right now and be in New York an hour later."

Jaw tight, Steve glances at TJ once. "I guess we'll have to."

"Seems like it," Clint grimaces.

For lack of anything else to do or say, TJ offers, "I'll drive you."

"Thanks," Steve says quietly, now looking at him again. "Come help me pack?"

"Of course." Getting to his feet, TJ offers Steve an unnecessary hand to help him up, and then they head into the bedroom where TJ immediately gets to work. First, he picks some different clothes for Steve to wear right now – another pair of sweatpants, black ones made of a fabric that'll make it look less like Steve was too lazy to get dressed properly, a t-shirt and he supposes Steve can wear his leather jacket on top.

Steve doesn't really have a bag here; he brings one when he comes over but takes it away again when he leaves, even if some of his stuff stays here. But TJ has enough bags, and actually it'll probably be more of a problem finding enough clothes of Steve's to go inside. Steve hasn't left that much stuff here. "How long do you think you'll be gone?" He calls out. Okay, underwear and socks, he's got that one covered. There are enough t-shirts too, a pair of jeans and slacks, all of which TJ packs into the bag. But there's nothing formal enough for a press conference. "Do you have a suit in New York?" He can't really lend Steve one, they're all tailor made to fit him and will definitely not fit Steve. Wait, didn't Steve leave a button-down shirt the other day? Maybe-

"TJ," Steve says, much closer than expected.

Surprised, TJ whirls around to find Steve leaning in the door to his walk-in closet. He's wearing the t-shirt and sweatpants TJ gave him, and his expression is serious.

For a moment TJ stares at him. Then he blinks twice and has to turn away; he can't bear looking at Steve right now, he might cry and that's ridiculous, it's not like Steve has never left-

So the last time Steve left he almost died. It's still not the norm. He's just going to a press conference, he'll be fine.

"TJ," Steve says again, even closer now, and then his hand is on TJ's waist, broad and warm.

TJ's breath hitches and he freezes, hands balling into fist.

"Hey," Steve murmurs and then his arms are around TJ, turning him around and pulling him close, into his chest. All TJ wants to do in that moment is cling to him but he can't, Steve is hurt and TJ will be damned before he causes him more pain.

"Hey," Steve whispers again. His big hand slides up TJ's spine to cradle the back of his head, as gentle as his voice, and his mouth presses into the side of TJ's head, breath warm in his hair. Then Steve says, "Do you want to come?"

For one ridiculous second TJ thinks he's talking about sex, but then he realizes what Steve is actually asking and freezes. "What?"

"Nobody has to see you," Steve hastens to explain. "Tony will have a car waiting to pick us up at the airport, and inside the tower is everything you might need."

It's not that TJ doesn't care about that, but in the grand scheme of things... he really doesn't. What he's stuck on is something else. "You want me to come?"

"Yes," Steve answers after a moment, quiet. "You don't have to, if you don't want to, obviously. It's fine. I'd like to have you with me but it's completely okay if you'd rather stay here."

"No," TJ says, then panics and adds quickly, "I want to come. I want to be there with you. I want to. Are you sure? Won't your friends mind? I'm not really involved."

Steve shakes his head, chin brushing against TJ's hair. "Like it matters. I'm sure, yes. Gotta admit, I don't really want to leave you out of my sight just yet."

Letting out one long breath, TJ lets himself believe it, process it. Steve wants him to come with him to New York; he asked. He wants to involve TJ in that part of his life that TJ so far has been rather removed from. Not on purpose, Steve doesn't seem to interact much with any of them apart from at work, which TJ really has no business or desire to be involved in. But still.

Natasha's mixed reception isn't very promising, but TJ could care less. If Steve wants him there as much as TJ wants to be with him TJ isn't going to let anything stop him.

Taking a deep breath that seems to fill his chest more than any breath he's taken since Natasha's phone call ended, TJ steps away from Steve and smiles. "We'll need a much bigger bag, then." A suitcase, even.

"So you're coming?" Steve asks hopefully.

Surprised, TJ blinks. "Yes! Of course I am. I'll... I'll always come if you want me there." A couple of months ago he wouldn't have been able to say that so easily, but it's not as difficult to open himself up like that with Steve, who wears his heart on his sleeve where TJ is concerned, tells him the sweetest things. It's impossible to not want to meet that sort of open honesty with equal openness, and TJ has learned how to do that.

"I always want you there," Steve tells him easily, smile wide and sweet as he cups TJ's face with both hands, pulls him into a kiss.

A kiss that TJ returns immediately, eagerly, though he's careful still with where else he touches Steve. The bruises have gotten better fast but they're still there, not to mention Steve's cracked ribs. But it's been over a week since Steve left, and half of that time TJ spent panicking about never seeing him again. They didn't even get any kind of celebratory sex out of it. Won't now either, but they definitely fall right into the kiss, spend more time on it they would otherwise considering that they're supposed to get on a plane. By the time they pull apart they're both breathing heavily and Steve's eyes are dark.

TJ licks his lips and steps away from Steve once more. It's all he can do to put some distance between them, gaze fixed on Steve's mouth, red and wet and irresistible.

Except they do have a plane they need to get on, and there are two of Steve's friends in the house, likely waiting for them to be ready to leave. And TJ needs to pack still.

Quickly turning around, he looks around his wardrobe, gaze settling on the top of his closet. "How long do you think we'll be gone?"

"No idea," Steve replies after a moment, voice a bit lower than usual. "A week, definitely. Maybe two?"

Two seems more likely. Three might even be the case, who knows; depending on how well this goes. They probably won't turn public opinion towards them in that time, though it depends on just how bad the situation is. But the most important things – joint press conferences, discussion of strategy, probably a few photo ops and interviews separately and together – they can get out of the way in three weeks.

He'll pack for three weeks. If they stay longer he can always go shopping.

Now, how many suits will he need? It depends on whether he'll be recognised, really. Come to think, he needs a story for why he's in New York when his family is in DC, just in case he gets spotted. But he can think about that on the plane; more important matters first.

"Are you... really going to need all that?" Steve asks after a moment. He only sounds confused anymore, nothing else, and that's when TJ remembers Steve's astonishment when he'd first seen TJ's closet. He'd called it huge and, compared to Steve's, it probably is.

Glancing back at him from where he's sorting through his semi-casual shirts, TJ raises one eyebrow. "Yes. I'm packing for three weeks though, just in case." Stark probably has staff, so he doesn't care about wrinkling anything as he rolls it up and stuffs it into his suitcase; only the suits and the best shirts go into a hanging bag. Anyways, he's not taking all that much, all things considered. He wants to look good, not like he spends most of his time lazing around on the couch, even if that's probably what he'll mostly be doing there.

Steve's things will have to stay in their own bag, though. There's definitely no room in his suitcase. It's appalling how little space there actually is in a suitcase, really; they look like they'll fit a lot but throw in a few pairs of pants and some shirts and you'll end up having to squeeze socks and underwear into whatever space you manage to suss out.

But well. If need be, TJ will go shopping. Online shopping is a possibility too, if the chance of his being spotted is too high.

"Let me-" Steve starts when TJ has finally closed the suitcase and bag and they're ready to leave, automatically reaching for the biggest item.

"Oh no, I don't think so," TJ immediately protests. "You can carry the hanging bag. Leave the rest to me." He might not be a super soldier or really any kind of soldier, but he does go to the studio for a reason. Okay, that reason is to look good and still get to eat chocolate, but being fit doesn't just mean _looking_ like it.

"Took you-" Natasha starts when they come down the stairs, but she falls silent when she spots TJ and the luggage following Steve. "You're coming?"

TJ hitches up one eyebrow. "Yes. Will there be lunch on the plane? Otherwise we'll stop for take-away before the airport." Lunch time is right around the corner and while TJ himself would be fine waiting until arrival in New York, Steve himself wouldn't be. Oh, he wouldn't suffer or anything, but he is still healing and recovering so TJ doesn't feel comfortable at the thought of using up what little resources he might have right now.

"Lunch on the plane," Clint replies after a moment when Natasha, instead of replying, starts heading down the corridor towards the garage. "Let me get that." He reaches for the suitcase.

"I can-" TJ starts, slightly annoyed – yes, okay, so he's no fighter type person but he can carry his own luggage, thank you – but Clint has already taken it from him. A little more annoyed now, TJ finishes, "...carry my own suitcase."

Clint looks over his shoulder at him, smiling inoffensively. "It's not like I got anything to carry myself so." He shrugs a bit.

He has a point, and it'd probably be silly to continue insisting. Still, TJ isn't overly impressed.

Well, whatever. They all pile into the car, Clint in the passenger seat and Steve and Natasha in the back, due to the fact that the two of them are more recognizable. All of them duck to hide from the security cameras when TJ drives through the gate protecting his neighborhood, but since they're not stopping anywhere after that they're fine.

TJ has traveled on private planes often, so he knows easily where to go, but he's still a little surprised how smoothly they make it through the controls. It's sooner than he expected when he rolls to a stop in front of the plane. Somehow the area is deserted and Natasha directs him to park in such a way that the car remains between them and the building, so the only point when they'll be seen is when they climb the stairs into the plane, and that's only the backs of them. This is as covert as it gets in a secure, private area of the airport, but TJ doesn't comment until they're in the plane, one of the flight attendants securing the luggage. "What about my car?" Normally there have always been drivers so he never bothered to think about it. But it's his car.

"If you give me the keys, sir, I will have it parked," the second flight attendant offers. TJ hands them over without protest, and twenty minutes later she returns. The plane immediately starts taxiing, which is another thing TJ isn't used to; even private planes have to wait for their slot. Not this one, apparently – either that, or they're just very lucky with the timing. Each of those options seems equally likely.

They're settled in four seats facing each other with a table in between, and as soon as they're in the air the flight attendants bring them food; platefuls of green beans, mashed potatoes and tender steak, accompanied by salad and preceded by a nice tomato soup and followed by panna cotta. It's all pretty good, and over the meal the time flies; by the time they're finished they've already reached New York and are about to land.

At the airport they're picked up by a limousine with a driver Steve addresses as Happy, and then they're gliding through New York towards Manhattan. This, even to TJ's standards which he is aware are privileged, has been the smoothest trip he has ever made. It didn't leave him much time to think – but New York traffic does.

He sits by the window next to Steve, their fingers entwined. Steve has his phone and is reading; TJ offered it because he has other things on his mind. Namely, the press and his own position in Steve's life.

There is a reason they're a secret. As per their plan, Steve was to reveal his sexuality soon, but with what happened now this really isn't the time for it. In fact, now is the worst time there is for it. This will push their plan back by at least half a year, which means it'll be at least another year before they can go public.

That's too long. Being with Steve is the best thing about his life and TJ doesn't know if he can deal with treating it like a dirty secret for that long. The situation reminds him of Sean as it is, no matter how much he doesn't want it to. No matter how well he knows that Steve is nothing like Sean, that Steve would walk down Fifth Avenue hand in hand with him tomorrow if TJ wanted.

Which is the core of the issue: they're in secret because it's what _TJ_ wanted. What he needed, really. As much as he loves Steve, as unashamed as he is of their relationship, he wasn't ready for the press and the public attention and scrutiny being with Steve would bring.

A week ago, if asked, he wouldn't have been sure if he was ready. Now... he had thought he knew what it meant, that Steve would be in danger regularly. He'd known nothing. Almost losing Steve, well, it put things in perspective even more than half a year of cloak and dagger meetings did. And as much as he loved being with Steve, that part of it he didn't like much.

It wasn't Steve's fault at all, of course it wasn't. It's all TJ. And not to say that TJ has never had to hide a relationship, but he actually hasn't had to that often. Nevermind that he hadn't had that many solid, monogamous relationships to begin with, but one of the very few good things about being outed so early had been that he'd never had to hide, that he'd never had to be scared or worry about coming out and what would happen and what his parents would think. Sure, he'd had a few brief affairs with people who'd rather keep it secret, but a lot more with people who didn't want that, and some with people who didn't care either way. But until Sean, there hadn't been anything serious that he'd had to hide so hard, and that's not an association he wants for his relationship with Steve.

He's here. He came with Steve, is going to stay with him in Stark Tower, and it's going to be very difficult explaining that one away if people find out. But what actually occupies TJ more is that... he doesn't care. So what if they find out? Would it be so bad? He loves Steve and Steve loves him. They're in this for the long haul, mean to be anyways, and TJ is tired of being a dirty little secret. Steve probably is as well, he doesn't feel good already about never being explicit about his sexuality, but while he sometimes talks about that he probably wouldn't bring the matter of their relationship and publicity up. He gave TJ the helm on that one, said it was solely his decision and that Steve would be fine with anything, and for that reason alone he won't bring up a change of the plan they worked out unless TJ will.

Turning his head from where he'd been staring unseeingly out the window, he looks at Steve, who glances at him when he notices. He meets TJ's eyes and smiles, leans in for a quick kiss before focusing on whatever he's reading again, and somehow that cinches it for TJ. Steve never once hesitated about touching TJ, not in front of TJ's family but also not in front of his friends, never was tense or nervous about them knowing or meeting TJ.

Letting out a slow breath, TJ settles in to rest his head against Steve's shoulder. He'll talk to Steve about this later.

The limousine brings them to an underground garage; they get out and pile into an elevator that closes and starts moving without anybody pressing any buttons.

"Hi, JARVIS," Steve says.

"Welcome Captain Rogers, Agent Barton, Agent Romanov, Mr. Hammond," a voice returns the greeting politely. "Mr. Stark is awaiting you in the penthouse."

Right, TJ remembers now reading or hearing something about this somewhere, a rumor or something that Tony Stark has an AI butler. Less rumor and more fact, apparently. And Steve is making conversation with it, actually asking it how it's doing, and TJ doesn't know if that's politeness or something else. Steve is the absolute opposite of stupid and picks up new things quickly and moves in the twenty-first century like someone who grew up in it, at least gadget if not pop culture and history wise, so it definitely isn't that; rather, TJ wonders if it means that the AI butler is less butler and more AI.

Remembering any movie involving AIs he's ever seen, TJ decides to better not think about that too much. Thankfully, he doesn't have the time anyway because the elevator is the high speed kind and very soon comes to a halt and dings, letting them out on the top floor.

Stark is waiting for them when the doors slide open, arms already half-stretched out. "There you are!" he exclaims. "My destructive, delusive friends. And... TJ."

"Tony," TJ returns the greeting a little sardonically.

"You know, here I thought you went straight," Tony jokes, holding out his hand.

"Never," TJ smirks back, shaking it.

"You know each other?" Steve asks, sounding surprised.

TJ doesn't know why he would be. Steve does know that TJ used to have a bit of a what's commonly referred to "wild" life, and he has to know that Tony did as well. It's inevitable that they'd cross paths, running in the same circles as they do – then and now.

"Of course we do," Tony says, surprisingly without a leer as he claps TJ on the shoulder and moves on to shake Steve's hand. "What I'm more curious about is how you two know each other." After all, to say that TJ and Steve don't – or didn't, nine months ago – run in the same circles would be an understatement.

"Wouldn't you like to know," TJ winks at him. It earns him an exasperated eyeroll, but Tony looks amused when he moves on to greet Natasha and Clint. Meanwhile TJ is introduced to Bruce Banner, who seems a little shy to him, even when he greets Steve, whom he already knows.

After all the greeting is out of the way they find their seats in a circular arrangement of sofas, a coffee table in the middle, and Stark serves drinks. Coffee, that is, though his coffee machine seems to have a range similar to a coffee shop's, offering different types of whipped cream and frothed milk and flavors and even types of coffee. Or at least so Tony advertises with no little amount of pride. Most of them order something along the lines of latte or cappuccino or "just coffee, please" (Steve, who has no patience in the ceremonial element modern society seems to favor with their coffee). When it's his turn, TJ relishes in ordering Jamaican Blue Mountain with a dash of vanilla flavor, a spoon of brown sugar and pecan milk froth.

"Really?" Tony asks, eyes narrowed. "Well, I can do that."

TJ grins, especially at Steve's expression which is somewhere on the lines of "really?". This is one of the things they differ in; TJ is a bit of a hedonist, likes indulging himself. Though he had to learn that, too, because after he stopped punishing himself it was hard allowing himself nice things. Steve on the other hand never had much opportunity, means or time to get know indulgences, much less get used to them. TJ has had a lot of fun introducing him to things like bath bombs and drawn-out massages with rich, nice-smelling oil, to scented candles and slow sex. Steve isn't morally opposed, he's just not used to it and when he's alone doesn't bother. Admittedly, when he's alone TJ is less inclined to as well; maybe they're not that different after all.

"You have to drink all of it," Tony orders when he puts TJ's cup on the table in front of him. "Well?"

Rolling his eyes, TJ lifts the cup and takes a sip; it's delicious. He loves Jamaican Blue because it's a mild type of coffee, not so bitter and okay, he was being a little bit of a shit because it's Tony and that's the sort of relationship they have. The coffee doesn't even need the vanilla, milk or sugar, but pecan milk is TJ's favorite vegan milk and he likes things sweet, so it's not going to be a problem drinking the whole cup.

Clearly being able to tell, Tony huffs and returns to the coffee machine to make his own cup, which he left for last like a good host. Then he sits down and a sort of awkward silence reigns.

"Well," Steve says after a moment. "What do we need to discuss?"

Tony grimaces. "Shit, basically. I sort of want to wait for Pepper, though, she's still at work but she should be here in an hour."

"I thought Pepper is busy being Stark Industries' CEO," Natasha speaks up. She doesn't sound overly impressed, but then, that seems to be her standard expression: unimpressed.

"I don't tell Pepper what to do," Tony shrugs, sipping his coffee. "I guess she feels this is important enough to get involved in."

Nobody has anything to say to that, and again the silence turns awkward. TJ is starting to realize that it's not just Steve who doesn't have much to do with them, they all don't seem to have much to do with each other. The Avengers that the public likes to talk about clearly don't exist as such.

"So..." Steve again breaks the silence, sounding about as awkward as this all feels. "How have you all been?"

What follows is a painfully awkward conversation in which everybody effectively tries to give as little information as possible. Natasha has been "around, working for SHIELD", as has Clint; Bruce apparently was traveling and Tony was busy "doing his thing". Not that they don't all know that he invited a terrorist into his house and lost it as a consequence. Steve, too, replies pretty blandly, with a shrug and a "working for SHIELD too", but with him at least TJ knows that that's really it and that he isn't being belligerent.


	8. Strategies

"Oh, come on," Tony groans eventually. "We saved the world together, you'd think we'd be able to hold a conversation."

"Apparently not," Steve comments wryly. He glances at TJ and shrugs a bit, then looks into the group again. "You guys up for a round of cards?"

That's how TJ ends up playing cards with the Avengers. At first the mood is still pretty awkward and subdued, but Tony's free vocabulary soon proves infectious and they start cursing at each other in a good natured way, groaning and cheering in turns. All in all, TJ is somewhat disillusioned where the Avengers are concerned, but this makes them more human and he feels a lot less like an outsider. They're all outsiders. There are twosomes – Tony and Bruce, Steve and TJ, Steve and Natasha, Natasha and Clint – but no more than that. They're all getting to know each other, TJ doesn't stick out.

So he's sorry when the elevator pings and Pepper Potts enters the room, her presence abruptly reminding everyone that they're here for a reason, and that reason is not pleasant.

"I guess it's serious business time," Tony comments, sounding not overly enthusiastic. When Pepper raises one eyebrow at this he hastens to add, "Though I'm always to happy to see you, dear, you look stunning as always."

She rolls her eyes but allows the kiss he offers her as greeting, then greets everybody else before sitting down next to Tony. "How are you all doing?" she asks.

"To be honest, I'd like to get this out of the way," Steve replies apologetically. "Not that it isn't lovely to see you, but..."

Pepper is already nodding. "Oh, no, of course, I understand. Well. I presume you're all aware of the SHIELD/HYDRA conundrum? Good. And how close attention have you paid to the aftermath?"

They share a couple of uncomfortable glances. "Zero," Steve eventually admits, shrugging apologetically.

Clint jerks his thumb towards Steve and nods. "Ditto."

"It's been a busy couple of days," Natasha says a bit stiffly, which could mean anything, really.

"I know a bit, what you've told me," Bruce shrugs.

"Alright, then I'll sum it up: people are panicking. HYDRA has infiltrated up to a very high level in our government, and finding out that Nazis have been influencing our country for decades made everybody paranoid and hostile. It didn't help that all of SHIELD's files got dumped on the internet and are now publicly available. Generally people don't want to know just how deep in their personal business the government is involved, and SHIELD has made it impossible to ignore. Nobody knows what to do and practically everybody can get some traction these days if they're loud enough. The Avengers are smack dab in the middle of this. To be frank, it doesn't look good: three of you have been actively working for SHIELD up to the point of the collapse, two of you were actively involved in said collapse, all of you have been involved in causing a huge amount of property damage, and SHIELD's files on you, publicly available now, have negative things to say about all of you. People are questioning whether you should be held liable for the damage you were involved in causing, are questioning your loyalties and in general the institution of so-called super heroes and vigilante justice. They're not quite blaming you for causing the invasion of New York just yet, but it's close."

She gives them all a moment to let that sink in and share uncomfortable glances.

Clint is the one to break the silence. "Well... what are we supposed to do about it? Can we even do something?"

Oh dear.

"Yes," Pepper replies. "You can, and you have to. Maybe you wish you didn't have to, but like it or not, it does concern all of you. Maybe you didn't start this and didn't ask for it, but it could still have real-life consequences for all of you, and that's why we need to get ahead of this as soon as possible, meaning. Today. Tony has already made a website for the Avengers, one that includes all your files. It's necessary." Her voice rises when everybody stirs, clearly not liking this at all. "They've all been made public anyway. The internet is forever; there's no way to erase them completely, and trying will only look bad for you. This is the new world you live in now, people: where everybody knows your secrets and can find out on the internet where you went to kindergarten. We included the files on the website because there's no hiding them, and trying will make us look suspicious. That's something that we can't afford right now: we need to remind people that we're just normal people with perhaps some specialized abilities in some area, but not maniacal vigilantes who don't follow the law and can't be prosecuted. For that purpose I've made a list of question and information that each of you should be prepared to reveal to the public in the interviews you'll all be having for the next couple of weeks and months. The list is negotiable, but prepare to have an answer to every question."

At that point Tony reaches under the coffee table and produces a stack of tablet that he hands out to all of them. TJ doesn't get one, but he just shrugs in answer to Tony's apologetic grimace. He's no Avenger, he knows that. Instead, he looks over Steve's shoulder, skimming through the list. It contains some pretty superficial information like favorite color or food or dessert, but also more personal questions. They must be specialized to each member of the Avengers, because Steve's list tells him that he should be prepared to tell people again why he chose to accept the serum and risk his life that way. There are several questions about what Steve did in the Second World War and a load of what he's done since he woke up. The list itself isn't long, but if Steve were to answer all questions thoroughly it would probably be long enough to fill a whole magazine, cover to back.

Under TJ's chin, Steve's shoulder is hard as stone. "I don't like this," he says, voice tense but low. This is not for the group, just for TJ. Even if there are no illusions that they can all hear. "They already know so much – they can read my whole file if they feel like it, it answers most of these questions. Why do I have to talk about these things?"

"It's not about the information," TJ immediately explains. "Yeah, sure, they could google that. Hell, everybody knows that your favorite dessert is apple pie; it's not about that. It's about hearing you tell it – they need to see you, hear you, read your body language. You have to become a person to them rather than a figure. You and Tony are probably the most public figures on the team, but everybody knows Tony personally. Not literally, of course, but he's been in the papers since he was born, people could read about his every fuck up and every success as it happened, so they feel like they know him and are part of his life. With you they grew up, but you were a history figure, not somebody real. You have to become real to them, somebody tangible. They have to see you make jokes and have facial expressions and talk about trivial things to remember that you're just a normal person underneath it all. If you become vulnerable to them, they will stop being scared of you."

"Scared?" Steve repeats.

Uncomfortable, TJ shrugs. "They're not scared of _you_ per se, just what you could do. As Captain America you have a lot of power and nobody really realized that, but now they have to. Everybody who knows you knows you'd never use or abuse that, but the vast majority of them don't know you, they just know what they've been told about you all their lives, which honestly sounds too good to be true. They'll think about what they'd do in your position and then get scared. Plus, this whole HYDRA disaster has destabilized everything. Americans like to consider their government as stable and reliable, as much as they like complaining about it, but this belief has been thoroughly shaken the last couple of days. Worse, not just their faith in their current government, but the government and history of the past decades. On the Richter scale this would be a magnitude eight earthquake. Which is bad enough, but there's nobody really to blame. Pierce is dead, a lot of the others have fled or killed themselves or been killed as well. Arrests have been made, but even so, they're probably debating evidence, circumstantial and otherwise, the legality of charging somebody with a crime based on evidence everybody can google. Plus, what crimes can HYDRA agents even be accused of? They're probably debating that as well. There'll be people claiming the evidence is wrong too, family members looking approachable on TV while they cry into the camera and say this is false, daddy isn't a Nazi, this is all some sort of agenda or conspiracy. And you're pretty much at the center of it. You can be blamed, somehow. So we need to head them off before they get to that point, and the longer you remain silent, the more things will boil up."

"That's right," Pepper says, and that's when TJ realizes that they're all looking at him. "Do you have any other thoughts?"

A little confused, TJ glances around the group. "About how to prevent that or what?"

"Well, yes, that too." She leans towards him. "I forgot, but you've been doing this all your life, haven't you?"

"I grew up in the White House," TJ points out very dryly.

"Perfect." Looking very satisfied, Pepper sits back again. "Are you interested in being part of the PR team? This is a job offer."

Completely taken aback, TJ blinks again. Is she serious?

"Of course, you can think about it," she adds quickly. "Let me know. For now..." she looks around the group. "I know this sucks, but it's either this or leaving the country, going undercover. Which is an option, I guess, but has to be considered carefully. For now, I need for all of you to fill your lists as much as you can and are willing to. If there's something you don't want to answer we can discuss that later, but for now I'd like to ask for all of you to be as informative as you can; this isn't what will be published. It's merely a fact-gathering mission for intel that will be used to strategize this endeavor. In an hour, I will meet with Amelia and Derek, our PR managers, and we will develop some ideas based on your answers. Nothing will happen without your consent. Any questions?"

"Do I really have to fill all this out, Pepper?" Tony immediately whines. "You know all this stuff already!"

"I need everything written down concisely so we can use it in a constructive manner," Pepper informs him sternly. "Fill it out, Tony. Anybody else?"

Nobody volunteers so she nods, visibly putting an end to her little speech. TJ has been witness to PR strategy missions since before he could walk so he knows his way around them, and Pepper has an impressive grasp on things.

"TJ?" Steve asks quietly. "They're asking a lot of questions about my private life."

Fuck. Grimacing, TJ leans into Steve's side, mostly to provide him some physical support under the guise of peering at his list. "That's because very little is known about it." In the forties the interviews just didn't ask the sort of questions people would ask nowadays – understandably, everybody had been more interested in the war effort and the role the Howling Commandos were playing – and so far Steve has been notorious for avoiding interviews, and for avoiding these sort of questions. TJ knows that it's because Steve feels like so little of himself even belongs to him, his whole life having been made public property with his innermost private belongings displayed in museums, but from a PR point of view, this is really bad.

"For a reason." Quietly, Steve stares at the list.

TJ sighs and takes the tablet out of his hands, turns Steve's head so he's looking him straight in the eyes. "Listen. You've been very good at keeping Steve Rogers and Captain America apart, and that doesn't have to change. People know Captain America, but now they need to know a bit about Steve Rogers too. It's not easy, but it's not hard either, drawing a line, after you've done it and stick to it. You don't want anything from them except for them to leave you in peace, right? So you don't have to compromise yourself for this. You just give them a bit, whatever you're comfortable with, enough so they think they know you and can make up their minds about you. Then they'll leave you alone."

For a moment Steve just looks at him. He looks tired, weary in a way he hasn't looked since he came back, strong shoulders slumped. "I don't think there's anything I'm comfortable with people knowing."

Immediately, TJ shakes his head; they can't get started like this. "That's not true. It feels like that right now, but trust me. Answer the questions as if I asked them, and then we'll work this out together, okay?"

With a resigned shrug, Steve takes the offered tablet back. "Okay."

"Okay," TJ repeats and leans in to brush a kiss to his cheek, soft and lingering. "Listen, I have to tell my mom I'm not in DC anymore, I'll be right back, okay?"

Steve nods, turns his head for a quick peck and then focuses on the tablet. Around the table all his friends are doing the same; Clint and Natasha have their heads bent together, Clint is frowning and Natasha looks cold. Bruce looks troubled as well, and Tony looks grumpy. Pepper is on her phone and when TJ rises to his feet she looks up, glances around the group and shrugs sympathetically. TJ meets her eyes and shrugs as well, then steps away from them towards the huge window front leading out onto a balcony for some resemblance of privacy. First he fires off a quick text to Doug, informing him of his change in location, and then he moves on in his contact list to his mother.

Again, surprisingly, she picks up right away when he calls. Does she thinks he's in some sort of potential emergency situation? TJ only has known her to do that when he was in the hospital after his second (third) suicide attempt. "Yes, TJ? Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. How are things?"

"Stressful," she replies wryly, probably a vast understatement. A normal day in the White House is stressful. "Chaotic. I'm sorry, if this is a social call can I call you back?"

"If you want to, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm in New York right now and I'm not sure when I'll be back, might be a week or two."

Elaine audibly pauses. "New York? Why?"

Well-aware that she can't see him, TJ nevertheless shrugs and looks out over the city sprawled across in front of him. The view is rather magnificent. "I'm with Steve. There are some PR things with the Avengers."

"Ah," his mother makes. "Yes, that. They should probably all prepare for a hearing, Captain Rogers and Ms Romanov in particular."

Fuck. Well, TJ shouldn't be surprised. He grimaces. "Soon?"

"When does anything here ever happen soon?" Elaine snorts. "But relatively, actually. They'll probably get their summons in a couple of weeks."

"Alright." Another thing to prepare for. TJ sighs. Then his mother's careful tone of voice makes him listen up; she only speaks to him like that when she's asking about something delicate.

"TJ, if you're in New York right now, does that mean you're... with Steve?"

"What do you mean?" Confused, TJ blinks at Manhattan. "Of course I am." What else would he be doing in New York, much less at a time like this?

"I meant publicly," Elaine clarifies. "You're not planning to keep things under wraps any longer?"

Things meaning their relationship. "I'm not sure yet. We haven't talked about it yet, but we might."

"Alright." She doesn't let on either way what she thinks about that, which TJ appreciates, honestly. This will be complicated enough to figure out on their own, without having to consider his mother's opinion as well. And as much as he'd like to not take her into account, he'll have to, if she wants him to. It'd be egoistic not to consider the consequences this will have for her career and political stance as well. "Well, I have to get back to work now, call me if you need to."

"Will do." They say their goodbyes and hang up. TJ has barely turned around when Pepper already approaches him; apparently she was waiting for him to finish up.

"Do you have some time to talk about the job offer now?" she asks.

TJ glances at Steve, who's frowning unhappily at the tablet and looks like he could use some support, but not like he really needs it right now. "Sure," he says, and she leads him to the wet bar.

"Non-alcoholic," she informs him as they approach, so what looked like her being inconsiderate turns out not to be that at all. "Tony's cut off a couple of weeks ago so right now we stock a vast array of fancy fruit juices."

And syrups. She mixes them a couple of nice virgin cocktails and then they settle on the bar chairs, both with good view on their respective boyfriends.

"I'll get right to it," Pepper starts off. "We could really use someone for our PR team. Amelia and Daniel are highly qualified and recommended, of course, but they don't have the experience you have. Nobody else available does, in fact."

A little uncomfortable, TJ shrugs. "Dad likes to say it's in our blood. But... I was never really involved, so I think you're overestimating my capabilities. I was present for many meetings like this, yes, but I wasn't often involved and I was never the one to run the show."

"We don't need for anybody to run this show," she replies earnestly. "What we need is somebody who instinctively knows what's going on, what we need and why. I couldn't have explained it as concisely as you could – and to be honest, I probably would have tried to buffer it a little so as not to scare them, but in hindsight that wouldn't have been a wise thing to do. They need to know what's happening to decide if they can deal with it."

She falls silent and TJ does as well, not sure what to say. He agrees with her, cushioning it wouldn't have been a good idea, but he's not really sure what she wants from him, here. "Do you mean for me to be a liaison between the PR team and the Avengers? Because frankly, I'm not sure I'd be the right person for that. You'd definitely the better option; they know you, you've been with Tony for years so they trust you as well, and they probably had no idea I'd be even in the picture until a few hours ago. And frankly, my history doesn't exactly encourage trust in me or my abilities."

Impatiently, she waves her hand as if to wipe that one away. "Trust me, in the context of the team your history is nothing shocking or new. Even among them you're not the only one who's been there, for any of it. But actually, what I would like for you to do is function as a consultant. Give advice, voice your thoughts, anything that occurs to you to whatever we discuss or plan. You're right, I can explain things to them just as well as you can, but that doesn't mean it won't be a good idea to have you there as well to work on this. Plus..." she hesitates for a moment, something discreet in her expression. "Though that isn't by far the reason I'm offering you a position, if you're a consultant for the PR team that would explain why you're here. Forgive me, it's none of my business, I know, but I can't help but notice that you and Steve have been keeping under the radar. If you want to continue that trend, the Avengers to be hiring you as PR consultant would be the perfect cover. But that's not why I'm offering you this position; I really think we need you and your expertise."

For some reason, TJ is reeling. Expertise, she said, like he actually has something valuable to offer when he really doesn't think he does. Then her smart conclusion that he and Steve have been keeping under wraps for a reason and her offering a way for them to keep doing that, something that would even let him go out with Steve and be seen in public with him with a perfect explanation available, one that would still be applicable even after this, when they return to DC.

Plus, it really seems like she wants to hire him. From everything that TJ knows about her, she's a no-nonsense business woman, not ruthless or unkind but certainly not the type to make an offer like this out of pity or sympathy or anything like that. No, she has to mean it.

And it can't be his name. He has no references whatsoever, no precedents to make having his name attached to their PR team or the Avengers in general be of any advantage whatsoever. It wouldn't even help politically because while his mother has a lot of influence, TJ has none whatsoever. Anybody with average intelligence would be aware of this, so Pepper certainly should be.

No, no matter what angle TJ comes at it from, it seems like her job offer is genuine. And meant for him, TJ, not Thomas Hammond, son of former President Bud Hammond and current Vice President Elaine Barrish. That... leaves him a little stunned, actually.

"Think about it," Pepper offers not unkindly, touches the back of his hand once and gets up. "Help me carry?"

It takes TJ a moment to make sense of that one: she means a stack of glasses she has him bring over to the table while she carries a few bottles of orange juice, water and lychee juice.

"Drinks for everyone," she announces. "If you want anything else, check in the fridge."

They seem grateful for the break, if the way they immediately put away their tablets and lean forwards for a glass is anything to go by. "Hey," Steve greets lowly when TJ sits down next to him, tall glass of juice cocktail still in his hand. "You good?"

"I think I should be the one asking you that," TJ replies, leaning in for a quick peck. Then he offers Steve his cocktail. "It's virgin."

One corner of Steve's mouth twitches up and TJ grins faintly as well, remembering the first time he used that word to describe a non-alcoholic cocktail to Steve. Unfamiliar with the expression, Steve had been quite adorably flustered.

"It's good."

"Pepper offered me a job," TJ changes topics a little abruptly. Immediately afterwards, he wishes he hadn't brought it up. This really is bad timing: Steve certainly has more important things on his mind. It's just that TJ can't stop thinking about it.

But rather than confusion or annoyance at TJ's focus on himself, Steve only looks interested. "Did she? She elaborated on it, then?"

Right, she'd brought it up in front of the whole group already. TJ hadn't really thought she was serious then. "Yeah."

"So what exactly did she offer?"

Lower lip caught between his teeth, TJ takes Steve's hand, hooks their fingers together. "She said they need my expertise. She wants for me to be a consultant. She even said... she said it would be a great cover for why I'm here, but that's not why she's offering."

Steve hums noncommittally, squeezing his fingers gently. "And what do you think?"

A little unsure, TJ focuses on the spiral straw in his drink, tonguing it as he slowly takes a long sip. It really is a good cocktail; the almond syrup gives it a nice undertone, not quite exotic but nothing common at all either.

But that's not the topic at hand. What does he think about Pepper's job offer?

"If it's not what you want, you can just say no," Steve reminds him quietly. There's no judgment in his voice, but TJ isn't surprised by that. Steve is one of the most if not the most non-judgmental person he knows.

"It's not that," he deflects, then frowns a bit. What is it, then? "Actually I... can't really believe it. I... I want to do it. I want to help you. I just don't really believe I have all that much to contribute."

"Well, Pepper clearly does," Steve offers. "And as I understand it, this is one of the things she's done for Tony for over a decade, so she'd know what she's talking about, right?"

Right.

"But I don't... I don't want you to do it just for me."

"I'm not compromising myself," TJ immediately replies, looking up to meet Steve's eyes. "If I agree, it's because it's what I want to do. I wouldn't agree if it'd be only because I thought it's what you want, but I don't." Maybe he would have, in the past. For Sean, he certainly compromised himself; if he'd thought more of himself he certainly wouldn't have agreed to being a dirty little secret for so long, would have questioned Sean's promises with no follow through earlier. But TJ has learned a lot, and he knows to pay more attention to himself now.

Steve is already nodding like he knows that, which really, he should. They talk about this a lot, after all. Happiness, listening to yourself and all the rest. "I know. I just wanted to put that out there."

Alright, that's Steve through and through. TJ thinks for a moment, then nods as well: he'll take that job offer. He still doesn't think he'll have much to contribute, but once Pepper realizes that he'll be back to where he is now, no worse. Besides, consultant is a pretty fluid job description anyway, it could mean any amount of involvement and contribution. He'll just see how this goes.

Made mostly made up, TJ nods and focuses on the issue at hand. "How are you getting on with the list?"

At that Steve grimaces and looks away, which really says it all. Offering him another sip from his drink, TJ patiently waits. Sure, he could just check the list, but what's written there is not really what he wants to know.

"I get that this is important and necessary and why," Steve replies after a moment. "But the thought of telling everybody these things makes me cringe."

Hmm. "Can I see?" TJ takes the tablet when Steve immediately hands it over. Right away, TJ hones in on the first somewhat intimate question, which is about what Peggy Carter meant to him. In bracket it asks to clarify if their relationship was romantic or not, one of the great mysteries surrounding Steve Rogers of the forties. First Steve answered the question in bullet points, adjectives he associates with Peggy, and then he clearly gets uncomfortable as he elaborates that Peggy had been one of his closest friends. He ends with a rather abrupt, _we kissed once right before I got on the Valkyrie._

"Right," TJ says. "Look this question. People don't need to know that." He points at the short sentence. "You don't need to tell anybody that. Let's take a couple of these words – okay, this is just a suggestion, but if somebody asks about her you can say, _I respected Peggy Carter a lot. She was an important friend and a highly competent, intelligent Agent. But there there wasn't much time for anything that wasn't the war effort. Our time was cut short before we could figure out how we fit together._ Maybe a bit better formulated, but something along those lines. Yeah? You don't need to give them any concrete information. This isn't a mission report, they don't have to know that. They'll be satisfied with a dash of information sprinkled with some emotion, something that they can relate to. How you say what you say matters sometimes more than what you actually say."

Thoughtfully, Steve takes the tablet back. A frown wrinkles his brows, but this time it's a thoughtful rather than an unhappy one. "I see," he says slowly. "I guess that makes sense." He looks up again to meet TJ's eyes. "But I still need to answer these in detail, right?"

"Just for you and me," TJ makes a snap decision. Well, he's going to be consulting so he'll officially be part of the PR team. He can make a decision like this. "We'll go through it once you're done and cut out the bits you really aren't comfortable with anybody knowing. When it's just us we can figure out how you can react if somebody somehow finds something out or anything, but we don't need to share those with the PR team."

Steve looks down on his list, then back up at TJ again; he looks like a considerable weight was lifted off his shoulders. "Alright. Okay." He exhales. "Yes, okay. _Thank you_." He leans in for a kiss that's not quite a peck, but certainly within acceptable PDA territory. Not that TJ is a great role model where that sort of thing is concerned.

"Not for that," TJ replies, unable to repress his smile or the slight flush that rises warmly to his cheeks.

"No, really," Steve insists. "I don't know what I'd do without you right now. I'm so glad you came."

It's impossible not to smile at that, even though TJ knows he probably looks like a love-struck dope right now. "Me too."

Steve returns the smile, then glances at the tablet, face dimming somewhat. Which actually reminds TJ of something he meant to bring up. "Do you want to talk about the relationship question?"

Clearly surprised, Steve looks up. "What?"

TJ nods at the tablet. "I've been thinking," he says slowly. "Not mention my name or anything, it's not a good situation for that, but... you could say you're in a relationship with a guy. Whatever you're comfortable with."

"No," Steve immediately protests, and for a second TJ's heart stops. Then Steve continues, "Whatever _you_ are comfortable with. We've talked about this. And you weren't ready, so I'm not going to say anything. I won't let this pressure you into anything."

"That's not," TJ starts, then pauses, suddenly acutely aware that while they're speaking in lowered voices, anyone who makes an effort can probably hear what they're saying. "Come, I'll mix you something." He gets up and while Steve is clearly confused, he follows. By the time they've reached the bar Steve has figured it out, though.

"Listen," TJ says as he surveys the available syrups and juices. He settles for something simple, using ginger syrup and sparkling apple cider, a few of the apple water ice cubes and a cinnamon stick for garnish. It's nice actually mixing something; he hasn't done it in over nine months. For some reason he never thought of using non-alcoholic ingredients to make a cocktail on a habitual basis, something he'll probably reconsider now, because it's fun. "Listen," he says again a couple of minutes later as he presents the finished drink to Steve. "I meant it when I said I wasn't ready. But we haven't talked about it in four months, and I think... I fucking _hate_ hiding, is what I think. I hate not getting to take you to a nice restaurant or holding hands while taking a walk through the park with you. I hate this covert cloak and dagger stuff. I know it's all on me, I'm not blaming you or angry at you or anything. But this just drove the point home. If anything had happened to you, I wouldn't even have been... invited to the funeral or anything. Nobody apart from my closest relatives would eve know why I care. I'm not saying come out right now, I'm not sure that's a decision I should make right now. But... the more I think about it, the more I feel like I did when I was with Sean, and that's the last thing I want for us. Maybe we can just stop making such a huge effort to stay under the radar from now on. Unless you have personal objections, if the only issues you have with that are on my behalf, just... don't. Tell them that you're with someone. Tell them it's a guy, even, if you want. There'll be speculations, but there would be no matter when we do this; now is no different to in three months. It's not good timing to mention me by name right now, but if it happens, it happens. I don't want to look over my shoulder all the time and only come to you in the dark, or vice versa. We can use the consultant thing as a deflection, but I just want to take one step now. If you're ready for that, I mean."

"I am," Steve confirms after a moment. "I'm just not sure if now is a good time to make a decision like that."

"I'm not either, which is why I haven't," TJ reminds him. "I just sped up the timing a bit. Do not patronize me, Steve." This is the first serious, life-changing decision that's happening between them. If Steve doesn't take him serious now... then either he in general sees TJ as someone not capable of making his own decisions, or he's using TJ as a front to hide that it's an issue for _him_. In general TJ wouldn't mind the latter, though he wouldn't be happy about it either, but if Steve were using TJ to hide behind... that'd be a huge, big No. One important thing TJ needs in his relationships is honesty.

As it is for Steve, who immediately shakes his head. "I'm not." He looks at TJ searchingly for a moment, then exhales. "Alright, if that's what you want..." Thoughtfully he trails off. One corner of his mouth quirks up. "To be honest, that's one thing I look forwards to telling. I can't wait to see the conservative's faces when they realize I'm not their ideal poster boy for discrimination, classicism and dictating other people's lives."

Relieved, TJ grins. "See? And now you get to tell them. You can get angry about all sorts of things in public now, they're practically asking you to."

Steve rolls his eyes. "Somehow I doubt that. They'll probably tell me not to criticize America in any way right now so nobody tries to arrest me for treason."

"I don't think so," TJ disagrees. "I'm a consultant now, remember? Yeah, you shouldn't say anything too controversial right now, but you're allowed to have opinions – and to voice them in public. There are several reasons why I'll encourage that and I doubt the PR team are going to disagree on principle." The time for blindly speaking the public's opinion has passed. The climate right now just doesn't allow for that sort of thing.

"So you're really going to take the job offer?" Steve looks happy about that, if his smile is anything to go by.

"Yeah." Glancing over to the sofa, TJ sees Pepper deeply involved with Tony and Bruce, likely advising them on their own questionnaires if the way they're bent over their tablets is anything to go by. A little further off Natasha and Clint are leaning into each other, apparently discussing their own lists. So there's no objection to TJ helping Steve; that's good. Not that that would've stopped him either way.

They return to their seats where Steve returns to his own tablet and TJ finds he has a text from Anne on his phone. _Heard you're in NY, want to meet up for lunch or something? Going crazy._

_Sure, let me get back to you on when,_ TJ texts back. _Thought you were supposed to be back by this point or I would've texted you._

_I was supposed to be,_ she replies. _Client's keeping me tied up though. Wants all sorts of changed and suddenly there are extra rooms. Getting paid double for the short notice._

Plus, they're probably prestigious enough so Anne can't simply decline, even if it's inconvenient. TJ might not know much of the interior design market, but he knows that a lot of it functions on word of mouth. _You go girl. Not sure I can do today but should have time tomorrow evening. Not sure about lunch._

_Dinner works too, or drinks. I could really use actually talking to someone instead of schmoozing and networking._

Both aren't things she was brought up to practically from the cradle, like Doug and TJ. She's a great designer, very good at getting along with all sorts of people, but she's had to learn how to utilize her charm especially once she and Doug married. But really, even TJ would have enough after a week of this sort of thing. _Either's fine. Chin up lady, you're brilliant and they know it._

_Thanks sweetheart :) What are you doing in NY?_

_Steve,_ TJ replies cheekily before adding another text, _He's meeting up with his team to discuss how to handle the media._

_Oh, right. Is he coming too? I've got a hotel room we can meet in for privacy._

_If you want, I can ask. But we can meet just the two of us too if that's too much pressure._ Among their family, TJ and Anne are sort of the broken ones. TJ doesn't know how the others do it, but once he got to know her a bit better it turned out that he and Anne have quite a bit in common in how they handle stress: they internalize it and use self-harming behavior to relieve it. After his last suicide attempt things sort of came to a head for Anne too, which is why she and Doug eloped to get married rather than go through the huge, ultra-planned wedding that had been scheduled. It had helped for her and Doug's relationship, but hadn't actually solved any of her issues. TJ is pretty sure that she learned a few coping strategies second-hand from him when he was in the hospital; he did in fact speak to a therapist a couple of times about her bulimia. Not that he minds, he's glad he could help. But as a result, they became closer and these days are pretty good friends who practice the straight-forward honesty TJ learned at the hospital with each other.

_No, I'd like to see him if he has time. He sort of radiates calm and I feel better just having seen him. Don't laugh._

_I'm in love with him,_ TJ replies wryly. I'll always nod along to anyone waxing lyrical about him.

Cutie ;) Right gotta go, let me know about tomorrow k?

Will do xx

She replies _xx_ and, smiling, TJ turns his phone screen off. There's a text from his brother waiting, it's about their mom, but TJ isn't in the mood right now, he wants to check in on Steve first. Leaning into him, he peers at the tablet where he's typing away. "How's it going?"

"Better now," Steve replies absently. "Now that I know for sure how much is getting out, I mean. And that no strangers are going to read the really private things." He glances at TJ once, expression a little self-deprecating. "I don't have much experience with this sort of thing, you might have noticed."

TJ hums noncommittally. "Didn't you do a lot of interviews in the forties?"

"Some," Steve shrugs. "But not that many. People definitely didn't pay as much attention to so-called celebrities then. Besides, most of the time I was told what I was to say anyway. It was war," he reminds when both of TJ's eyebrows fly up. "There were a lot of things I wasn't allowed to talk about. Besides, I was part of the propaganda machine."

Right. TJ has a vague memory of seeing some videos in school, but he didn't pay too close attention then and he hasn't watched anything since. There's a difference between knowing his boyfriend was born right at the end of the first World War and seeing him on seventy years old tapes, looking the exact same way he does now. Sometimes it feels like there's a pretty big gap between them just simply based on how vastly differently they grew up, and TJ is scared that one day they won't be able to bridge it anymore.

Rationally, he knows that the longer they're together the better they'll be at learning how to cross the difference until one day they might barely feel it anymore, but still. The worry is there.

"What do you think about these questions?" Steve asks, not noticing TJ's thoughts drifting. He points at the first few, the pretty lame ones asking about favorite color and things like that that TJ honestly isn't sure what to do with. It'd be interesting to know if the other lists contain the same questions or if it's only Steve. If it's the latter, it's probably because of how these are things everybody knows about Steve already because all sorts of source material from back when targeted for children wrote all sorts of things about Steve's taste in food or whatever. They probably need to see if it's necessary or even worth it correcting any misconceptions.

TJ shrugs a bit and explains as much to Steve, who grimaces, then sighs and sets to answering those as well.


	9. Questions over Questions

With Steve busy again, TJ turns back to his phone, checking on his brother's text. It informs him that their mother isn't too happy at the prospect of TJ being in NY. _She asked if you're planning on hiding inside the hotel room the whole time,_ Doug writes. Knowing their mother's sharp tongue well, TJ grimaces, then replies, _Actually, no. Just wait until she sees what I'm actually doing here._ Then, because he doesn't really have the patience to wait to tell at least one person, he sends another text, informing his brother, _I've been pretty much officially hired as PR consultant._

 _For real?_ Doug immediately texts back. _Not just as a cover?_

_No, for real. Apparently I'm ace at this sort of thing._

_Well, you're definitely qualified,_ Doug writes like it's common knowledge. _That's great though. Just for Steve? Who hired you?_

 _As part of the PR team for the Avengers,_ TJ explains. _We're in Stark Tower right now. I met Pepper Potts and she pretty much hired me on the spot._

_They could use some good PR so you'll definitely be busy. Send the contract to our lawyers before you sign anything._

_Really?_ Rolling his eyes, TJ sends back, _I'm not stupid, Doug. Of course I will. Btw, got a date with your wife tomorrow ;) Gotta go, ttyl._

Putting his phone away, he accepts the tablet Steve is holding out to him. All the questions have been answered, mostly in bullet points. "Awesome. Now let's mark everything red you don't want to discuss with anyone, alright?" Once done, TJ emails the list to himself and then deletes everything Steve marked red, focusing only on the rest. Together, they work out acceptable answers that give enough information to satisfy, but still preserve some of Steve's privacy. For the relationship one they write, _I currently am in a happy relationship with a guy I met almost a year ago. We're not ready to go fully public just yet, though, so I won't answer any questions about him._

After they've worked through the whole list TJ gives it back to Steve to look everything over to make sure he's satisfied with it. When he is, Steve takes the tablet to hand it over to Pepper, who's standing by the bar with Bruce.

"You done?" Tony, still on the sofa, asks with a wink. "You were pretty focused there."

TJ shrugs, refusing to be embarrassed. "Yeah, we're finished. What about you?"

Glancing at his tablet, discarded on the sofa next to him, Tony grimaces. "I've been over most of this loads of times. Not really looking forwards to having to go through it all again another half a dozen times."

"You know the press," TJ shrugs. "They'll never stop asking the same questions over and over. I still get asked how I felt getting outed fifteen years ago."

Derisively, Tony rolls his eyes. "Somehow I'm not surprised." He glances around once – Clint and Natasha are still focused on their tablets and Steve, Pepper and Bruce have become involved in a conversation as well – and then gets up, dropping down on the sofa next to TJ. "So, you and Steve. How did that happen?"

Well, he probably should get used to these sort of questions. In a couple of months, they'll be all people will ask him about for a while. "How do these things happen?" TJ shrugs "You've met Steve. Show me one person in the world who wouldn't want to climb him like a tree." There probably are a few, the completely heterosexual or homosexual ones, but TJ is pretty sure that Steve could tempt anyone who has even the slightest inclination.

"Well, duh, but you're not just climbing him, are you?" Tony points out. "I've got to admit, I never thought I'd see you in a stable relationship, but even if I had, Steve is probably the last person I would've picked."

Right, Tony doesn't know about Sean. But even if he did, that doesn't compare one lick to how TJ feels about Steve, so it doesn't matter much. Anyways... glancing towards Pepper, coincidentally standing right next to Steve with both of them facing the room and focused on Bruce, whose back is turned, TJ pointedly raises one eyebrow. "Most people eventually want to settle down, don't they?"

Following TJ's gaze, Tony's face softens. "True." Right at that point Bruce must say something funny because both Pepper and Steve laugh. It's terribly infectious when Steve laughs because he does it with his whole body, mouth stretched wide, eyes bright and crinkling at the corners, shoulders back as his body language opens. TJ sort of wants to wrap himself around him and protect him from anyone who'd want to hurt him, nevermind that Steve is perfectly capable of protecting himself.

"Okay." Tony clears his throat, catching TJ's attention again, though he's pretty sure that Tony was staring over there pretty much the same way TJ was. "I did notice how you weaseled out of telling me how you met."

TJ tilts his head. This is a good opportunity to see how the truth works, and Tony can keep a secret if need be. "At the hospital, actually," he thus replies honestly. "We crossed paths when I was there after the meds mishap." He shrugs a bit. "You know Steve. I must have looked pathetic enough for him to stick around for a bit, and we became friends."

"Well, okay, Steve has a soft heart for pathetic things," Tony agrees, "but not that soft. Pretty sure he must have seen something in you. Otherwise he probably would've only stuck around until you went to rehab, which was... a couple of days later?"

"A week," TJ corrects, long used to people knowing the details of his life without him ever spoken to them about anything.

Tony nods. "There we go. Steve likes doing the being nice to people in need thing, but I'm pretty sure he'd have left it at one visit to raise your spirits or something. Wait." He frowns a bit. "Did you do the star-struck thing?"

Remembering how he very much had not, TJ has to laugh. "The opposite of it, really. I didn't even recognize him until he showed me his wikipedia page. I thought he was a reporter first."

"And did you do it after?"

Instead of dignifying that with a reply, TJ just raises an eyebrow in an 'oh please' expression. He really is not into that sort of thing. Growing up with a famous father and family and all that entailed had really disillusioned him very early to fame and cured him of any hero-worship he might have harbored at one point. Tony would know; when they met, TJ a notorious party animal and Tony at the height of his fame pre-Iron Man, TJ hadn't been overly impressed. They drank through more than one night together and that's really how they got to know one another, at least superficially. Fame will always be the last thing to impress TJ about a person.

"Yeah, alright." Tony raises both hands, taking the point. "What I'm saying is, if you had, he probably would've come to visit you once, fulfill your hero-worshipping fantasies, and left it at that. If you didn't ask him to come, he probably wouldn't have come at all."

"I did invite him," TJ points out. "I just wasn't all 'please, Captain America, can I have some more' about it."

Snorting a laugh at the phrasing, Tony shakes his head. "That's what I'm saying. He's not really the sort of person who'll string someone along out of pity. So he must've seen something in you."

"Well," TJ shrugs. "Whether he did or not, he definitely sees something in me now, and that's all that matters, right?"

"That's right." Nodding, Tony claps him on the shoulder. "God knows that some days I still wonder why Pepper's sticking with me, but she is, that's the important part."

"She is too good for you," TJ teases. "If I were a little more hetero..."

Expression dead serious, Tony points at him. "No. Hell no."

TJ snickers and laughs harder when right at that moment Pepper separates from Steve and Bruce and heads over – clearly aiming for him, because she's looking at him rather than Tony. It takes all of his self-control not to tilt his head at her and flirt, but since she's probably going to be his employer, he refrains. Even though her smile is particularly wide and pleased when she sits down next to him, a tablet in hand. "TJ, I saw what you did with Steve. I've been working on the same thing with Tony and Bruce, I'd appreciate it if you could look them over and then help out Clint and Natasha."

TJ blinks once and takes a deep breath rather than give voice to any of the innuendos shooting through his head. When he exhales he's serious again. "Sure, I can do that."

Her smile widens. "Brilliant. Does that mean you're accepting that job offer?"

"Yes, I am," he smiles back. "I really appreciate the opportunity."

"I appreciate having your expertise on the team," she replies, handing him the tablet she's holding. "This is Bruce's, Tony's list is on there as well, perhaps you could discuss this with him?"

"Oh, no," Tony immediately protests. "I'll say what it tells me to, I don't need-"

"I think you do, Tony," Pepper cuts him off. "Remember the _I am Iron Man_ incident? I'm never again giving you cards to follow."

With a chagrined expression, Tony takes the point. "Fine," he grumbles and scoots closer to TJ. "So?"

"So, is there anything on here you don't actually want to talk about in public?" TJ starts. Going through the list with Tony goes much quicker, partially because he's already been there, done that with Pepper, partially because Tony just has a lot of experience with this sort of thing. When they're finished TJ pulls up Bruce's questionnaire on the tablet and reads through it, brows wrinkling as he realizes that this won't be as easy as Tony's. There are a lot more questionable things up to debate about Bruce than there are about Tony, who's been through all of it countless times. Bruce is a virtual unknown to the public, and additionally probably scares quite a few people. It will be much more difficult to twist these things so the public won't start a witch hunt.

Reading through Bruce's questions makes one thing obvious to TJ: he needs to do research. He needs to reach the data that's available to the public. About Steve and Tony he knows enough to not have needed it just yet, but Bruce is a complete unknown to him.

"Tony?" he asks, catching his attention where he's talking with Pepper. "Any chance I can get access to SHIELD's data on this?"

"Well, yes," Tony answers after a moment. "It's all on the internet. Why, what do you need?"

TJ raises one eyebrow at him. "It occurred to me that it'd be a good idea I know what the people know about the Avengers before I try to help sell the Avengers to the people."

"Hey! No selling anyone," Tony protests with a frown.

Surprised, TJ blinks. "The Avengers are a product. As a team, and each individual member as well. Right now that product's rep has been dragged through the mud, so we need to polish it off and make people remember why they wanted this product in the first place." He frowns as he realizes what Tony probably means. "Not literally. But whatever you want to do – be a politician, an actor, a singer – if you want to have success, you need to make yourself into a brand you sell. A brand the people, your target group, want. That's what this is about, isn't it?"

"It is," Pepper confirms firmly from Tony's other side. "Tony knows that, he's just protective of the team."

Tony grimaces a bit. "Just because I know they hate all this." He glances towards where Bruce and Steve still stand, Steve now behind the bar, mixing some sort of drink. "I never meant for this to happen. I liked having a team but I realized that this isn't really their sort of thing – publicity, being a brand. Even Steve doesn't like it."

"That's why we have to find ways so it's acceptable for all of them," TJ agrees. "This sucks but it's done. All we can do now is pick up the pieces and deal, right?"

"Right." Tony grimaces again and crosses his arms. For a moment he frowns into nothing, then he suddenly perks up. "Hey, you think I can rename the tower into Avengers tower now? I meant to after the whole Invasion business but Pepper pointed out why it's not a good idea. How about now?"

Blinking, TJ tilts his head. "That's actually not a bad idea at all. Make this the official Avengers headquarters, so to speak, something people can associate with the team, a concrete turning point." He thinks about it for another moment. "Actually, that's a pretty good idea." Having somewhere concrete to focus on will have its downsides, but also its advantages.

"Yes!" Pumping his fist, Tony turns to Pepper, grinning widely. She rolls her eyes, an indulgent expression on her face, and gently reminds, "SHIELD's files, Tony?"

"Oh, right." Making a grabby hand for the tablet, Tony quickly starts tapping away on it as soon as TJ hands it over, and half a minute later he hands it back. They're in a folder now with subfolders for each member of the team, and definitely not on the internet. "That's all the data the internet has access to," Tony explains. "I'm having JARVIS sum it up for you, the reports are pretty dry to slug through and some of them are... upsetting. Give it ten minutes and you can start with Bruce's file. You can read the extended files if you want to though."

Brows furrowed thoughtfully, TJ taps on the file named 'Bruce Banner' and then stares at the hundreds of files that sprawl out on the screen, a lot of pdfs and images of scanned paper files. "Yeah, no, I'll go with summaries for now," he decides, putting the tablet down.

Since he has ten minutes and Steve seems pretty involved in his conversation with Bruce that TJ is reluctant to barge in, he takes out his phone and decides to do a very superficial survey of what the public thinks about Bruce. Googling his name, one of the first results already makes him cringe: _Bruce Banner alias Hulk – why hasn't he been arrested yet?_

Grimacing, TJ clicks on the article and finds himself pleasantly surprised. Apparently after the New York invasion there was a big cry for having Bruce arrested due to the destruction of Harlem, but now things are different. About Harlem TJ knew, but not about the drama after the invasion. It's understandable, but with the publication of SHIELD's files an issue eyewitnesses had been fighting about for years was resolved: that not the green Hulk but rather a different Hulk, a red one, had caused most of the destruction in Harlem. The green Hulk had fought against him to stop him from hurting or destroying more people and property than he already had. The article sums this up nicely and uses the events for an impromptu moral lesson about how one should never judge a book by its cover, or even by the first few pages.

This looks better than expected, so TJ clicks on a few more articles the search yielded. Not all are as positive and supportive, of course, there are quite the mixed opinions out there, but that's to be expected. When he feels that he has enough of an overview to make relatively competent, non-final decisions he clicks on the summary document that by this point is at the top of the folder and speed reads through that one, noting that it's really just a detailed description of the info he gleaned from the articles already. Apparently Bruce spent most of his time before and after the New York Invasion in third word countries, being a doctor for the poor. Funded by Tony, post-New York. SHIELD carefully tracked his every move, reports on Bruce's location and activities summed up in one-liners by JARVIS, except for a few reports by agents that look like personal opinions, noting that Bruce seems to have a good hold on the Hulk so long as his life isn't threatened.

With this new knowledge, TJ reads through Bruce's questionnaire, mentally noting a few points. Once he's been through everything he looks up to find that pretty much everyone is gone except for Bruce and Steve, who are sitting quietly on the sofa, reading respectively sketching.

Surprised, he blinks. "Where did everyone go?"

"Pepper had to work, Tony got bored, and Clint and Natasha said they'll be back in an hour," Steve immediately replies, putting his sketchbook down. His smile is sweet when he meets TJ's eyes; he looks happy. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, good." Wow. It's been a while since he got so focused, but TJ remembers that he'd gotten like that when he was doing homework he enjoyed, back before he stopped doing homework. He still gets like that when he plays piano, sometimes, but few other things have captured his attention like that. Blinking again, he returns to reality fully and smiles at Steve. He feels good, somehow and, wanting to share the feeling, he scoots over to where Steve sits and cups his face, draws him into a kiss. Steve returns it willingly but keeps his hands to himself, which reminds TJ that they're not completely alone.

He keeps the kiss easy, soft, and smiles at Steve when he pulls back. "So what's the plan?"

Steve glances at the watch on his wrist. "Dinner at seven. Until then..." he shrugs. "I gave Pepper your number so she can contact you. Do you want to go take the luggage to our floor?"

"In a bit, I just need to go over this with Bruce." Holding up the tablet, TJ smiles at Steve again, then gets up to head over to where Bruce is sitting. This huge circular sofa has its downsides.

Bruce puts his book down when TJ approaches and smiles mildly, not meeting TJ's eyes fully. He seems shy and a little unsure but TJ, mind already focused on his appointed task, knows that this could easily be interpreted as shifty by non-benevolent journalists.

Acutely aware now that Bruce has considerably less experience with journalists than Tony and Steve and a considerably bigger dislike of them than Steve, TJ decides to approach this slowly. "Hey. Do you have some time for this?" He holds up the tablet.

"Not like I have much choice, do I," Bruce replies, one corner of his mouth curling up.

TJ shrugs as he sits down next to him. "We could do this later today, I guess, but you're right, we don't have much time."

Nodding, Bruce sets his book aside. He doesn't sigh or anything, but even just by his demeanor TJ gets the impression that Bruce is unhappy about this. Considering how after New York he made sure to leave the country again as soon as possible and only returned a couple of days ago, when Tony tracked him down and brought him back in reaction to the SHIELD data dump, this is understandable.

"So I'm guessing Pepper already went over this with you," TJ starts.

Bruce nods. "And I know why it's necessary, yes. I'm not happy about it, but I understand."

Alright. No need to explain anything, then. "Okay. Then what you need to do is decide what kind of image you want to portray to the world. It will be a version of yourself, of course, but there are different variations."

Pushing his glasses up his nose, Bruce tilts his head. "What do you mean?"

"Being a public figure will always be draining," TJ explains. "Personally, I believe it's in the long run easier to portray a version of yourself that you're comfortable with, but that isn't you. It of course will still be you, but an image of you rather than your real, true self. That way when you get attacked you can disassociate with the attacks and criticism, because it's aimed at image-you rather than you-you. Does that make sense?"

"Yes," Bruce nods. "That's what Tony does and, I believe, what Steve does?" He glances at Steve, who nods in reply.

"Yes," he confirms. "Though that was less calculation and more a byproduct of how Captain America started out as more of a caricature than anything else."

"And because of how Captain America was used and utilized in ways that were entirely out of Steve's control, especially while he was in the ice," TJ adds.

"Whereas with me, there was never any control in the first place," Bruce says quietly.

There's nothing to do but to agree. "Yes. That's why we can use this opportunity to take some control. Right now people are, believe it or not, feeling generally good about you. They're still scared, of course, but SHIELD's reports have been fair as far as I can tell and very detailed in what you all did to gain control and the effort you went through to not harm anyone. After the Invasion of New York they were definitely feeling a lot worse about you."

"Pepper mentioned that," Bruce says a bit doubtfully.

TJ nods. "So what has to happen now is that you need to decide on your image. Because of how little people know of you yourself, what you present to them is pretty malleable yet. Shy and humble are the two primary traits I would suggest the focus be on. Calm and controlled are secondary traits. Due to the Hulk people will be inclined to be scared or apprehensive about you, so what we want to do is make them inclined to accept that side of yours because they trust Bruce Banner."

Head tilted, Bruce again pushes his glasses up his nose. "What do you mean when you say that's what the focus should be on?"

"Well, as we've seen with Tony and really pretty much everyone who was caught doing a mistake and recovered from it, people lap the reformed thing up. What will be most difficult to explain about you is why you decided to test the serum on yourself. Hubris, most people will probably think, ego, narcissism." Realizing how he might come across, TJ pauses. "Just so you're aware, personally I don't care. It's none of my business. But as your PR consultant, I'm probably going to talk about things – your life, your person – in ways that aren't pleasant to hear. It's nothing personal, okay? We're trying to sell a product to the people in order to get a result we want – for them to not see you as a threat and leave you alone. These are strategies to get there, okay?"

Hands settling in his lap, Bruce smiles at him, small but warm. By this point he's actually meeting TJ's eyes more often than not. "Yes, I know. Thanks for explaining, though."

"I'm not really fond of PR people and suddenly I am one, it's a bit weird." TJ crinkles his nose. "We're working together though, okay? So if I'm suggesting something you don't want, let me know."

Bruce nods. "I will."

"Okay." Derailed, it takes TJ a second to remember what track he was on. "So... why you took the serum. You'll be asked about this and unless you have a noble explanation – you were trying to heal someone's dying mother or something, though the universal healing is a good angle to soften this a bit either way – it would be best to be self-deprecating and reformed about your reasons. You were arrogant and sure it would work, something like that. Clearly you learned better, and now you put your efforts into helping others – the poor and disadvantaged – not only in order to make up for your mistakes, but in order to put something good into the world after the chaos you put in it." He takes a breath to recollect where his point was. Remembering, he points to the pertaining question on the tablet. "Which is why it'd be great if you could elaborate a little on this answer and put a spin on it that's less antisocial." Right now, the answer Bruce gave to the pertaining question sounds a lot like "I wanted to be away from everyone else because I hate people and they're dangerous". At least to anyone who isn't inclined to do a benevolent reading of the answer.

With a frown, Bruce accepts the tablet and peers at the pertaining question and answer. "Oh, I see what you mean. Alright. Is there anything else?"

TJ shrugs. "Small things, but you can probably fix it yourself if you read through everything through this lens of it not being you, but a version of you that's answering these. I don't want to put words in your mouth. The less you're involved yourself, the less in control you'll feel, and let me tell you from personal experience that that's never a good thing."

At that Bruce glances at him and smiles wryly. "I know. Thank you, this has been informative."

It's a clear dismissal. A bit flustered – he really should have realized that yes, Bruce actually does know that it's not a good thing to feel out of control – TJ glances at Steve, then meets Bruce's eyes again. "It's part of what I'm here for." Mostly he's here to support his boyfriend, though. "So I guess we'll leave you to it." They nod at each other, and TJ focuses on Steve. "You wanted to show me our floor? ...wait, what do you mean, floor? We have an entire floor to ourselves?"

"Tony," is all Steve says, like that explains everything. The thing is, it kind of does.


	10. Fixing Things

They leave Bruce and walk to the elevator, in which their luggage still stands, untouched.

"Private elevator," Steve explains. They get in and travel down a few floors, two, maybe three, TJ isn't paying attention because Steve is right there and he looks loose and relaxed and gorgeous and it feels like ages since TJ looked at him without remembering how scared for him he was. As soon as the elevator doors close behind them he's in Steve's space, raising to the tips of his toes, hands framing Steve's face. The bruises there have mostly faded to a faint yellow color except for the discoloration around his eye, now green, and the small cut on his cheek. Under his shirt the bruises are more prominent, especially the deep ones still look unpleasant, but he's overall doing better, TJ knows. Enough so that TJ doesn't feel like he'll hurt Steve if he so much as bumps gently against his chest.

Which is a good thing, because as soon as TJ's hands cup around Steve's face Steve leans into him, one hand on the small of his back, intent obvious. They kiss and while it's gentle, it's not particularly soft, rather deep and moving, the kind of kiss Steve is so good at. TJ feels it down to his bones, even more so because it's been a while – it really has been. And Steve is warm and comforting against him, lips soft and mobile, a mouth so familiar and so familiar with his in a way that's dizzying, a sweet rush as TJ remembers kisses they've shared before, similar to this one and different, but all of them good, all of them meaning the same thing: I know you. I love touching you. I love _you._

The elevator pings softly as the door opens again but TJ doesn't care, isn't paying attention; rather, he takes it as encouragement, slinging one arm around Steve's neck and pushing into him. God, he wants to take Steve to bed, fuck in that slow, languid way Steve has taught him, like they have all the time in the world and nowhere more important to be than with each other.

It's miniscule, a tensing and releasing of Steve's muscles that's over so quick TJ might not have noticed it if he weren't so focused on Steve. But he is, and with the abruptness of a cold shower he remembers that while Steve might be better, he's definitely not good yet. It's just been a few days, for god's sake.

Abruptly he rips himself away from Steve and stumbles back, bumps into the elevator wall. "I'm sorry," he pants, heart quick in his chest and lips tingling. He's on his way to hard, but that's definitely not going to happen.

"TJ," Steve complains, stepping towards him. "I'm okay."

Well, that's a bold-faced lie. "Are you?"

That makes Steve falter. "Maybe not like that," he admits a bit reluctantly. "But what I meant was, I'm okay enough for this."

TJ shakes his head. "I just hurt you, Steve, because I forgot. I wasn't paying attention to the right things. I want to, but not enough to risk hurting you, okay?"

Steve sighs, clearly disappointed, but doesn't try to convince him. "Okay." He reaches out, a bit slowly like he's giving TJ the opportunity to turn away. Fuck that; just because TJ doesn't want for them to get worked up doesn't mean they can't touch at all. They have _some_ self-control, thank you very much. He steps back into Steve's personal space, though not as close as before, and kisses Steve again, only softer now. When they pull apart a moment later Steve is smiling, and there's nothing resigned about it, even though his pupils are still wider than normal, betraying his interest.

"I love you," TJ blurts, because he does, and because he's never met anyone as amazing and sweet as Steve.

Whose smile widens, turns impossibly bright at that. "I love you too."

They've said it often enough by this point that it shouldn't be so novel anymore, but TJ still can't do anything but beam at Steve for a moment or two. He doesn't know what he's done to deserve someone like Steve – scratch that, he's pretty sure he doesn't deserve Steve. But when TJ brings that up Steve points out that it's not about deserving, and he's right about that.

Eventually he manages to gather his wits enough to lift their luggage and enter the small room the elevator opens into. "I wouldn't want the elevator to just open into my living room," Steve explains, hand at the small of TJ's back as they step further inside. "Not that Tony asked me or anything, he just somehow knew. He likes to hide it, but he can be thoughtful. When he remembers." He rolls his eyes a bit. "Want the tour?"

TJ does, so they leave the luggage in the hall and Steve takes TJ's hand, leading him around his floor. There's the huge living room with its panorama window and gorgeous view, the spacious, bright kitchen, a master bedroom with huge bed and luxurious bathroom, a slightly smaller guest bedroom with its own bathroom, no less well-equipped than the master bedroom, and two extra rooms that Steve clearly doesn't know what to do with. The style is simple, clean but not sterile, warm colors and soft fabrics, nothing ostentatious. Someone made a good guess as to how to make Steve feel comfortable.

"Not sure what to do with the extra rooms," Steve shrugs, clearly a bit uncomfortable. "Hell, I definitely don't need this much space. But Tony gave it to me – he gave a floor to each of us – and he won't accept a no."

"Of course he doesn't," TJ shrugs. "He grew up in a materialistic world. This is how he shows his appreciation."

"Right," Steve agrees after a moment. "It's brilliant how easily you can recognize that. It took me a long time to figure out that he wasn't trying to buy or bribe me somehow."

TJ shakes his head. Somehow, it's really important that Steve understand this, because TJ is aware that he himself has similar tendencies. He likes to give Steve presents to show him that he thought of him, even more so when they're the practical type of gift because that makes Steve more inclined to accept, and because it also shows that TJ listens to him and remembers the types of things that Steve does or that are on his mind. A new pair of running shoes, more expensive than Steve would ever buy for himself, an egg cutter because that's a handy thing the future has, the sketchbook and pencils. He doesn't know how else to show Steve that he pays attention to him without just crudely saying it.

So he tries to explain. "He isn't, not in that way. Superficially it might seem like that, but..."

"I know," Steve interrupts gently. Tilting TJ's chin up, more as a way to touch him than for any other reason, their size difference isn't that great, he leans in for a brief, soft kiss. "You're similar, so I get it now. Actually, you helped me understand."

Flattered, TJ flushes a little and smiles. Steve helped him so much, even before their relationship got romantic, so he's happy to know that he could give back some of that. "That's good." He leans in for another quick kiss, then steps back. "Snacktime? Sit down."

"I can move, TJ," Steve protests. "I'm not an invalid. It doesn't hurt to breathe anymore."

At that, TJ sends him a sharp look. Somehow Steve failed to include that little tidbit; if TJ had known that it was that bad, he might have insisted Steve see a doctor either way. He has enough money to have someone come in – in fact, both of them do. "To be clear on this, Steve, I'm really not happy that you refused to see a doctor. I respected your choice, but it made me worry a lot more. So until you're fine again you'll just have to deal with it when you think I'm overdoing it. Please go sit down, I'll find you something to eat."

Looking chagrined, almost stricken, Steve takes a seat on the sofa without a word while TJ heads to the naturally fully stocked kitchen to throw together a quick sandwich. Steve is silent when TJ returns, accepts the plate and glass of orange juice with a quiet "thanks", and TJ feels a little bad for snapping at him. But he's irritated enough with that new revelation that Steve had been in even more pain than TJ had thought and still refused to see a doctor. He just can't understand why. They could have found someone reliable, if it was about security.

Still, he's not really angry with Steve, so he sits down next to him as close as he normally would and shifts his leg until it's pressed against Steve's. When Steve looks at him TJ offers a small smile, then pulls out his phone. There's a text from an unknown number waiting that turns out to be Pepper's, letting him know that she emailed him a contract, which he takes a quick glance at, then forwards to their family lawyers to have a thorough see-through with the side-note to have it done asap.

He's just considering retrieving the tablet to read through the other Avengers' summary entries on their SHIELD files when Steve puts his empty plate and glass on the coffee table and settles back into the sofa in a way that tells TJ he wants to talk. Steve is unobtrusive about this sort of thing, waits until TJ doesn't look busy to gain his attention – unlike TJ who, he knows this himself, can be a bit of a brat about it. Though his therapist enables him, so there.

Switching his phone off he looks at Steve, one eyebrow rising questioningly.

"I'm sorry," Steve immediately offers, taking TJ's hand and cradling it between his. "I didn't really consider your feelings when I didn't want to see a doctor. I should've realized how it'd make you feel."

Already having moved on from the topic, TJ blinks for a moment, trying to collect himself. "You don't... you don't have to make decisions solely based on how they make me feel. But taking me into account would be good, yes."

That makes Steve wince. "I'm sorry," he offers again. "I just... I'm just used to not seeing a doctor until it's really bad. And I can tell the difference, trust me."

Well, he certainly has had enough opportunity to test that. Steve tends to shrug things like that off when he talks about them (and even when they happen, as TJ is now intimately aware), but TJ knows that he's gotten injured often during the war, sometimes seriously. And abruptly he realizes what the real issue is: during the war, Steve getting a doctor's attention would probably mean taking it away from somebody else – somebody who might have needed it more. Or at least that's the way Steve would certainly see it. Unless he were literally dying, he'd probably still think he could wait. Possibly even then.

The thought makes TJ feel ill for a second; he swallows it down and takes a deep breath, squeezes Steve's fingers. "I do trust you," he replies carefully. "But I just don't understand why you wouldn't see a doctor. You're not taking anything away from anybody if you do that, Steve, not anymore, and both of us could afford daily house visits for the next ten years, so it's not the money either. I think you have the tendency to neglect yourself, but Steve, just because you don't _need_ something – and I think you and I have different ideas of the difference between needs and wants – doesn't mean you have to deny yourself."

After a moment of thoughtful silence Steve nods, gaze in his lap where he's holding TJ's hand. "Yes. That might be it."

TJ looks at him for a moment, then ducks his head. Once he's caught Steve's gaze, rueful yet almost troubled, he leans in to press his lips to Steve's, warm and soft. "I love you, darling, so I really hate the thought of you being in pain."

Steve winces a bit. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm bad at... accepting help."

This both is and isn't news to TJ. On the one hand, at the beginning he never would have thought so, but slowly he's starting to learn that Steve is just as good at brushing off suggestions that would be good for him as he is with those that wouldn't. Oh, Steve fully supports TJ getting help and in fact seems to admire how TJ states (most of) his needs clearly (mostly), but somehow he doesn't seem to always translate that into something he could do, too. Their first almost-fight was about how Steve is sometimes just... too accommodating. In a way that makes TJ feel like Steve doesn't care, even though he knows that's not true. But where small things are concerned, Steve is just reluctant to make a preference without knowing whether his preference differs from TJ's, and once he knows that he does he'll go along with TJ's without ever bringing up that really, he would have liked something different. It's rather aggravating sometimes. On a wider scale, as TJ is finding now, this means that Steve is only willing to accept help so long as he doesn't feel like somebody isn't going to go out of their way too much for his sake.

"That's okay," TJ says after a moment of thinking about it. "Just, if you want to work on that, I'll be happy to help."

Slowly, Steve nods. "Okay. Yes. I, I think that's something I need to do." Letting go of TJ's hand he cups his face and then just... looks at him in that way that makes TJ flustered as much as it delights. Before it gets too much for him, though, Steve leans in for a quick kiss, then lets go of TJ's face to grab his hand again. "Did you want to talk to Natasha and Clint before dinner?"

Right. Licking his lips TJ lowers his gaze and tries to will the warmth in his cheeks to tone down some as he focuses on the question. Instead of answering it, though, what he ends up saying instead is another question: "Does Natasha have some sort of problem with me?"

Steve grimaces. "I don't know for sure. But I don't think it's about you really, it's more about me?"

"With you?" TJ blinks, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. "I thought you were friends?" Steve has at least talked about Natasha more than anybody else he works with.

"Yes, but she..." Steve grimaces a bit. "So I assumed she knew about you and me, but it turns out she didn't. And she kept suggesting girls to me that I should ask on a date, so I thought that since she knows about you and me, she sort of... has a problem with you and me. Because you're a guy. Which she doesn't, it turns out, and she's pretty pissed that I made her look homophobic or ignorant."

Well, okay, that... doesn't entirely make sense. "Why is she weird with me, then? It's not like I was involved."

"I don't know." Steve shrugs. "I'm going to talk to her about it though."

Frowning, TJ hesitates. "On my behalf?"

"Maybe?" Steve frowns as well. "I... I don't mean it like that, though. If you don't want me to, just say. I know you don't like it when people do things for you or about you like you're not involved."

"How do you mean it, then?" So Steve doesn't think he's annoyed, TJ squeezes his hand and nudges his leg with his knee.

One corner of Steve's mouth twitches up at that. "She's my friend, and she doesn't know you at all, so she has no reason to be weird with you unless it's about me. I'm going to have to talk to her about it either way, but if you want to talk to her first I'll wait."

That seems a bit excessive, considering. This isn't a huge deal, not like that. On the other hand... TJ will have to interact with her a bit, if only because of the PR work. He'd rather clear this up before they really get down to it. Then again, that could backfire spectacularly.

There's really no perfect solution here, but Steve does have a point. Only there's something he isn't taking into account. "This isn't like you're involved with some Joe Normal, though. I'm TJ Hammond. A majority of my fuck ups are a matter of public record. Maybe she just thinks I'm not the right person for you." If – when – their relationship becomes a matter of public record as well, she certainly won't be alone in that opinion.

"No," Steve immediately disagrees, brows furrowing. "I can't imagine that. She knows about second chances and about taking something at face value. Besides, even if she did have prejudices, she's been with us for a couple of days. By this point she's got to know that there's nothing unhealthy about our relationship."

Good point.

Still, Steve likes to see the best in everyone, and while that's something TJ benefits from, others do as well, obviously. TJ does think it's much more likely that Natasha just doesn't approve of TJ, or possibly is a little homophobic. She wouldn't be the first otherwise nice person who turned out to harbor some prejudices.

But she's Steve's friend, not TJ's. Which doesn't mean that what she does doesn't affect TJ – directly, such as when they meet, and indirectly in relation to how it affects Steve. But it does mean that TJ doesn't have much range to maneuver here. "How about you talk to her, and if necessary, I'll talk to her too. Just if she does anything again. What do you think?"

"Yes," Steve nods. "I'd like to take care of this as soon as possible, so I could talk to her while you do your thing with Clint?"

"Do my thing?" TJ repeats teasingly. "You trying to pimp me out, Steve?"

Steve rolls his eyes and nudges him in the ribs once, that spot that always makes TJ give a breathless little giggle. "Of course not."

A little flushed, TJ at the last second remembers that no, leaning against Steve is not a good idea, so he slumps against the backrest of the sofa instead. "Sounds like a plan of attack. Divide and conquer? I'm not really up to date on this military stuff."

"Most of it is ancient history anyway," Steve shrugs. "What changes are the weapons and the new possibilities they give, but strategy in general stays the same. That's why people still read The Art of War and study old battles."

"Okay," says TJ, who doesn't really understand much about this sort of thing – strategy and battles and things like that. The most he can offer is video games strategy.

Well, he's can do other things instead. Pressing a quick, careful kiss to Steve's cheek, he pulls out his phone and settles against the backrest. "Give me a minute to read up on this, okay?" He'll just do a quick check of online opinions and then read the summary document on the tablet and he'll be ready to do a preliminary discussion with Clint, like he did with Bruce and Steve already. And might do with Natasha. Will do with Natasha, because he wants to see if they can't find some sort of common ground. Anyway, it's not like she's been really hostile with him or anything, so hopefully they can just get past this. If they don't... well, he can leave her to Pepper and or the PR team. Which he has yet to meet. Another point for his suddenly quite busy agenda.

"Sure." Steve brushes the backs of his fingers against TJ's cheek, making him smile faintly, and then pulls out his own phone.

...wait. "You- I thought your phone was-" gone, TJ means to say, but it is, of course. That's not the phone TJ is familiar with that Steve is holding. "Oh! Tony gave you a new phone?"

"Of course he did," Steve rolls his eyes. "And he was obnoxious about it, which makes it hard to notice how thoughtful that was. Wait a second." He touches the screen a few times and a moment later TJ's phone starts vibrating with an incoming call from an unknown number. "Now you have my new number."

TJ saves it right away. The picture he selects for the contact is one where Steve is sitting by the window; it's not visible in the picture but the sun was setting, bathing him in warm light and making his hair look like spun gold. The scene had been too beautiful for a phone camera, but TJ had had nothing else on hand – Steve's lap had been too comfortable to get up. TJ wants nothing more than to make that picture his phone background, but he can't, in case it gets stolen. It's dangerous enough having it as a contact picture. As a background, he instead has a generic-looking one of Steve's chest from the chin down, no shirt, all his gorgeous muscles on display. It's a great picture, no question, but TJ would like to be able to also look at Steve's face.

Well, it is how it is, for now. Maybe in a week things will be different. But at the moment, he has more important things to worry about. Returning to his internet search, TJ does a brief overview of the most active gossip websites and forums. The ones he's most familiar with tend to be more focused on the political arena, but he personally is more involved in the pure gossip types as well. Partially because that's where he himself mostly ends up, partially because that's his role for the family: the non-political member. Not that he'd ever want anything else, heaven beware.

It's good enough for a preliminary search, anyway. From what TJ finds, Clint was the most unknown member of the Avengers – most, though not all, people were at least aware of his general existence as a team member, but they knew little else. Makes sense: the other team members catch the eye, for various reasons. They're more flashy – Tony, or Thor, literally – are Steve, or are noteworthy for some other reason – Natasha, Bruce. Clint probably falls through the cracks a little.

But boy, are those waters deep. TJ finds himself blinking a little incredulously when he reads the summary of the file provided to him on the tablet, and suddenly those opinion pieces calling for his resignation from the Avengers, the team of "real heroes", make more sense. Inasmuch as that's possible, anyway, because from what TJ reads, one, Clint clearly had no choice on the matter where his involvement in Loki's attack is concerned and two, he seems to not have done so well after that experience. Extended mandatory leave afterwards, therapy, no high-risk missions afterwards. His security level, however, was never reduced, TJ notes. He makes a couple of notes about that in his notebook, then moves on to researching Natasha.

She, well. Pre data dump, people didn't know her name nor did they have clear pictures of her, but with her red hair, clearly feminine figure and badass fighting skills on the ground, she stood out from the group. Far more so than Clint by mere location, who seems to have spent most of his time in New York on roofs, out of sight from phone cameras. There's a lot of speculation out there about Natasha who, just like Clint, people only knew under her code name.

Post data dump is a wholly different matter. Every Avenger's reputation took a hit after that, but none more so than Natasha's. Turns out she used to work on the other side of the Iron Curtain – not really out of her own free will, but it doesn't seem like a lot of people on the internet care about that. Even on this side of the fence, a lot of her missions were questionable morally, partially because a large portion of them turns out to have been orchestrated by HYDRA, and there is not a small number of people who claim she's an actual HYDRA agent. For a second TJ considers that, but then he realizes how ridiculous that is. For one, Steve wouldn't trust her if she were. Secondly, if she were, she would've been mighty stupid to get so involved in that mission of Steve's a couple of days ago. From what Steve has said, she was an absolutely vital part to it and without her, they would not have succeeded. As usual, people only see what they like to see, and what they'd like to see right now is a villain, a bad person they can lay all the blame on and who is actually alive to be prosecuted.

Well, there's nothing surprising about that. TJ makes some more notes on his phone, not sure if he's ever going to actually discuss this with Natasha, but if not, he can turn them over to Pepper or whoever will work on Natasha's image if it won't be TJ.

That done, he puts the phone down and looks at Steve, who's texting, brows furrowed thoughtfully. "I'm ready to talk to Clint."

Immediately, Steve looks up. "Oh, good. I'll talk to Natasha, then."

"Okay. Let me get something to drink first."

When TJ returns with four glasses and two water bottles, Steve calls down to Clint and Natasha, who have their own floor. Floors, plural, one each, and Steve doesn't know if they're together or not. TJ isn't sure if he needs to know just yet or not. Eventually he'll have to, the PR Team will, but he can probably leave it for now. Unless an opportunity arises, but somehow he doubts that it will. If Steve, their friend, doesn't know, TJ won't find out by accident.

The two appear relatively promptly, something which is explained by the tired sigh Clint gives as he throws himself on the other sofa. "Let's get this over with."

"You wanted to talk to me?" Natasha asks right after, one eyebrow raised at Steve.

"Yeah, let's..."

"We'll go somewhere else," TJ interrupts before Steve can try to get up.

For once, Steve doesn't protest. "There's an office or something down the hall," he offers instead, and TJ nods and leads Clint there, who looks less than enthusiastic.

The office is well-equipped and impersonal, empty shelves and unused equipment, and TJ decides on the sofa instead of the desk. "You're not really happy about this," he states as he sits in one corner.

"No," Clint replies curtly, then sighs and elaborates. "I'm a covert operative. Can't really be that if everyone and their mother knows my name and face, can I? Not to mention, I'm not too hot on everyone knowing about my childhood and everything. Not because I'm embarrassed or anything, but that shit's private. Plus there are some people is rather not know where I am or what my name is and who my friends are, you know?"

Slowly, TJ nods. Some of that he can relate to, and he understands all of it. "It sucks, yeah. On the other hand, you wouldn't be working for SHIELD anymore now either way, now that they're gone, so no matter what else happened, you'd be trying to reinvent yourself either way."

"Reinvent myself, " Clint repeats a little dubiously.

"You can make something positive of this situation," TJ points out. "You might not know what yet, but you will."

Clint grimaces. "Honestly? All I want to do is up and vanish. Get away from all this shot and try to figure out where's up."

In that moment, TJ figures out how to handle this. "Nothing stopping you," he points out reasonably. "It'd be good for your team and yourself both short and long term if you stayed a bit to tide things over, but nothing is topping you from going if that's really what you want and need."

For a moment Clint eyes him, expression unreadable. Then he sits up a little straighter, leans towards TJ. "Alright. What do I need to do?"

In that moment, he's decided to stay and sit this out, to deal with this without feeling forced to. He knows he can leave, and that's why he has an easier time staying.

TJ smiles and pulls out Clint's questionnaire. He gives Clint essentially the same spiel as Bruce, about image and the difference between his real self and the self he presents to the media. They discuss a bit what Clint can do to preserve what little privacy he has left and how to get on the audience's good side. They eventually will have to deal with the criticism aimed at Clint because of the roles he played in the fight against Loki, but TJ decides not to bring that up yet. Clint has to know, and it can't be a comfortable subject. Like with all of the others, the PR Team will need to have a session to discuss how to handle uncomfortable questions, with training and everything, but TJ doesn't want to get ahead too much, especially not before he hasn't talked to the other, proper members of the team. They're professionals, as opposed to TJ, who's just absorbed some things.

All in all, it goes relatively smoothly and fast and TJ is pretty sure Clint feels as okay with the whole process as he's going to get for now by the time they wrap up. He counts that a job well done.

Which, unfortunately, means that he now has to deal with Natasha. He can't deny that he feels a little apprehensive returning to the living room; he is pretty sure it'll have turned out that she simply doesn't think TJ is the right person for Steve. As unsurprised as TJ would be, he's still not looking forwards to having to face that.

There's no way to stall though, so TJ follows Clint back to the living room and tries to be prepared.

It's not immediately obvious what happened. Steve and Natasha sit next to each other, neither looking overly happy, but neither do they look angry. Clint plainly doesn't care – TJ doubts that he doesn't notice, but he shows no reaction, just throws himself onto the sofa. Relaxed as you please, he hooks one arm over the backrest and looks into the round. "All good," he states, somehow managing to make it an announcement and question both.

"My turn," Natasha states abruptly and gets to her feet, marches past TJ and towards the office. Clearly, there's nothing for TJ to do but to follow her. Throwing a glance towards Steve, whose expression he can't interpret but who is at least looking at him as well, he returns to the office, where Natasha has already chosen her seat: the rolling chair in front of the desk. Apparently she means for TJ to sit down behind the desk, but he thinks that'd set the entirely wrong set-up for what is probably already not going to be an easy conversation. So he sits on the sofa instead; her chair does have rolls, she can come closer if she wants to.

She doesn't want to. "Alright," TJ starts, but before he can continue she interrupts.

"I have to apologize."

Have, not want to, TJ notes. For a moment they just stare at each other; TJ is contemplating which way to go. Simply agree, like he wants to? Accept the not-apology and move on, let the matter drop? But before he can decide what's more important, diplomacy or his pride, Natasha sighs. Something in her demeanor changes all of a sudden; somehow she seems more approachable. "I am sorry," she says, not easily but it seems honest, now, and that matters more. "It wasn't about you."

Averting her eyes, she glares at the wall, arms crossing defensively. "Steve is my best friend," she states rather abruptly, but suddenly everything makes a bit more sense. TJ doesn't say anything though, just hears her out.

"He didn't tell me about you. I... didn't take that we'll. Especially after all the things it turns out I didn't know about SHIELD."

It becomes clearer and clearer to TJ, and he feels himself relenting. Yes, he wasn't happy, but ultimately it wasn't a huge deal either. Especially if it's not going to continue.

"Plus..." Natasha clenches her jaw and glares furiously at the wall. This clearly isn't easy for her, so TJ doesn't say a word when she again abruptly seemingly changes topics. "I'm a spy. I find out other people's secrets and I keep my own. Except now everyone knows my secrets, and I don't even know who I work for or who my best friend is."

And that is the crux of the matter. "So you took it out a bit on me.," TJ takes mercy on her. "And through that on Steve."

She shrugs, expression tight, then sighs again. "Yes. Sorry."

"It's alright," TJ relents. "So long as it doesn't happen again. I'm kind of used to being used as a placeholder or scapegoat and I'm really not fond of it."

"Sorry," she says again, and TJ decides to just put the matter behind.

"Let's start again? Hi, I'm TJ." He holds out his hand to her. "Steve's boyfriend and one of your PR consultants."

"Natasha." They shake hands. "Nice to meet you."

TJ offers her a smile and moves on right to business, discussing essentially the same things with her he did with Clint. Only it takes much longer with her, because her resume reveals a lot more things than having been brainwashed once and working as a spy and occasional hitman. She isn't happy about any of it, visibly having difficulties with the fact that some of the things she did or that happened to her are public knowledge now, but that only makes it more commendable that she dumped all of it on the Internet without hesitation. TJ says so, and uses it as the focal point for her defense. Her main point will be that she realized she's made mistakes, the biggest one being trusting the wrong people, but as soon as she realized she did her utmost to fix it or to at least foil HYDRA's plan. Without her, the world would be an entirely different place now, TJ is sure of that, and not just because Steve said so but because he's read the summary of her file.

It takes a while to get through all of it. Unlike Clint, though, Natasha is actually actively involved, and this is how TJ learns that she's a good manipulator. She actually doesn't really need him. Essentially, he provides some experience in the area of direct crowd manipulation that she doesn't have, but that's it. Pretty soon she won't even need that. TJ isn't sure if he should mind or what he should think about that.

By the time they decide they're done for now it's pretty much time for dinner already, and TJ still hasn't told Steve about meeting Anne tomorrow or talked to Pepper about the job or checked whether the lawyers have gotten back to him yet about the contract. One the one hand being busy is nice, but in the other, well. It's not like he had nothing to do before either, and suddenly he really misses the piano. He hasn't played in days, nor since Steve got back.

He must look a little melancholy when he gets back, because Steve's brows are slightly furred in worry. "Everything okay?" He glances quickly at Natasha, heading straight for the elevator. Clint, on the sofa next to Steve, immediately gets up to join her. In that moment, TJ realizes they're not simply close, they're together.

"Yeah, I'm okay," he answers Steve's question, slightly distracted by this new realization. They both had refused to answer the relationship question, maneuvering their way around it, and TJ hadn't pressed. Now he wonders as to their reasons, and whether the PR Team needs to know. Ideally, of course, the answer is yes. The more the PR Team knows the better they can prepare for all eventualities. But it's different when you're working for near- but not quite strangers, TJ realized. With his family, he by this point generally knows all skeletons, in closets or out. With strangers he could press the issue. These people, his boyfriend's friends, he has to be more diplomatic with. Though it stands to reason that they mean for him to know; they've kept it secret from everyone so far, and these people aren't dumb. That TJ figured it out must mean that they're ready for that to happen.

"TJ?"

Blinking, TJ looks up to find that Steve's slightly worried expression has turned into a full frown. "Are you okay? Did something happen with Natasha?"

"Oh, no, we're good. She apologized and explained, it's okay. I'm just thinking."

"Dangerous," Steve jokes as TJ sits down next to him, leans in for a quick kiss. The worry hasn't fully gone from his face though. "What about?"

"Just things." TJ shrugs. "I wonder if Tony has his baby grand here, I haven't played in days. Natasha and Clint didn't tell me they're together. It's definitely important so I'm not sure what to do about that."

Steve blinks. "They are? And why is it important?"

"I'm pretty sure. We're working on image restoration and preservation," TJ reminds him. "Anything that helps make them seem more human – in a good way, of course – is good. And something like this is a very good way to make people feel closer to them because they relate."

"Right." Steve sighs. "I'm sorry, I can't blame them for keeping it secret."

Shrugging, TJ concedes. "I guess." He can't either, not really, he isn't that much of a hypocrite, but still.

He'll just talk to Pepper about it, or hopefully she'll bring it up at one point so he won't have to.

"By the way, Sam is coming tomorrow," Steve changes topics. "Pepper says it's only a matter of time until his identity is revealed and apparently we need to talk about what he wants to do about everything."

Doing his best to keep his face calm, TJ asks, "By train?" It'll be interesting to see Sam again – they've met a couple of times, what with him being a good friend of Steve's and pretty much the only person on Steve's side to know about them – but he's pretty sure Sam won't be happy about the reason why he has to be here. Fame and the attention and loss of privacy that comes with it isn't something he would search out. But it'll all work out, TJ is sure; Sam is a good person, easy to get along with and trustworthy. TJ is just pretty sure that Sam doesn't really approve of their relationship. He just has this aura about him, eyes like he can look deep into your soul, and TJ is pretty sure his soul isn't a nice thing to look at, especially not in comparison to Steve's.

But he's trying not to let his insecurities get in his way; Sam is friendly and likeable and since he's important to Steve, TJ wants to get along with him as well. Granted, it bothers him just a tiny bit that Steve didn't show up at TJ's when he needed a place to stay, but logically, he knows why Steve couldn't, and he even understands a bit why he wouldn't. He just needs a little bit to internalize that and remind himself that he really has absolutely no reason to worry. This is _Steve,_ who might have had some casual sex but who was in love only twice in his life. That sort of thing he takes very seriously; he wouldn't mess around. If something actually changed he'd tell TJ right away, so TJ only has to trust that nothing will change.

Which, okay. Is a little hard. But that's a topic to discuss with his therapist and not something to fret over and work himself up about, especially since there really isn't any reason to worry.

"Yes," Steve is saying, smiling fondly. "He said he's looking forwards to seeing you again. He likes you a lot."

That surprises TJ; he blinks. They've met a couple of times, sure, but not that often, and outside of meeting via Steve, they aren't in contact at all. "He does?"

"He, uh." Ducking his head a little, Steve glances up at him from below his eyelashes. "He asked me what makes me happy, and I told him that you do."

Oh, TJ can just imagine how: with a blush exactly like the one that's spreading on Steve's cheeks right now. Maybe he even smiled a little bashfully, the way he's doing now, and maybe it's silly but TJ's heart swoops a little in his chest. All he wants to do is throw himself at Steve and wrap his arms around him, hold on tight, but since that'd hurt him he has to settle for taking Steve's hand, knuckles long since healed, and squeezing his fingers.

"You make me happy too," TJ says, settling for words instead of gestures.

Steve grins at him, eyes bright and cheeks still a little darker. He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything his phone beeps. Distracted, he glances at it, then sighs. "Time for dinner, apparently."

Thoughtfully, TJ hums. Once they've both risen to their feet he reaches out and pulls the hem of Steve's shirt up to check on his bruises. They still don't look good, but better than when Steve first showed up. More like a bad bump than deep-seated bruising that makes it hard to breathe.

"Two weeks," Steve tells him when he lets the shirt drop again. "I'll be right as rain by then."

Not that TJ believes Steve is lying, but still – it seems a little unreal to him.

Then again, Steve's knuckles have healed in just two days.

Dinner is to be held up in the open-plan penthouse, which somehow has acquired a big table set since they left. It looks pretty, and the three-hundred and sixty degree view of the sun setting on New York is gorgeous, frankly. TJ can't help but look around a couple of times; this could only get prettier if the roof too were made of glass.

"Yes, there is a reason I built this quote ugly-ass tower unquote," Tony says from over at the bar.

"It looks like a god damn llama," Clint immediately points out from where he's seated at the table between Natasha and Bruce.

"I think it's a nice change from the square and angular sort of towers," Steve joins in diplomatically.

TJ decides not to point out that he thinks the shape favors looking modern over being practical, or, frankly, pretty. It seems to be a trend for so-called modern design, though thankfully, lately the trend has changed a bit. Personally, TJ likes things either homely or minimalist, sleek but not to the point of being bothersome, like these curved walls have got to be sometimes.

He remains silent as they bicker good-naturedly, Tony bringing non-alcoholic drinks made to requests over from the bar. It seems he's showing off his virgin cocktail maker skills; TJ requests a surprise and gets something tasty, a zing of lemon in lychee juice, with ice and some crushed mint. It's good.

"Of course it is," Tony preens. "My invention." Then he hurries off to create something to impress Steve with.

Slowly the table fills up as everyone finds their seat; Pepper appears and sits down next to TJ, purposeful like she wants to discuss something with him, but she pauses, mouth already open. Then she huffs a little laugh and smiles bashfully. "I was about to start talking business, but there's a no work talk at the dinner table rule."

"Just the dinner table?" TJ asks curiously. Such a suggestion is anathema to him – or rather, to his family. Especially during dinner is when a lot of work talk happens.

"Yes," she nods. "I had to instate it because I do like talking about other things than the amazing scientific advances Tony has made in the lab that day."

"Gasp," TJ teases, and Pepper laughs – the real type, head thrown back, her hand going to his shoulder as if automatically. She just touches him once before withdrawing again, and her eyes are bright when she looks at him again. She opens her mouth, but that's when Tony swoops in, claiming her attention as he brings her a drink, demands a kiss and calls her "pearl of the evening". It's over the top, but TJ thinks he knows Tony well enough to see that he means it.

They've been sitting for about ten minutes, making small talk – Pepper asks if TJ's been to New York often before and then they talk about what sites he's seen. Steve gets involved in the conversation as well and pretty soon he and Pepper are talking about the MoMA, which TJ has been to a few times but hasn't paid attention to as thoroughly as Steve and Pepper clearly have. Right when he's starting to wonder if he should go back, though without Steve it probably won't be much fun, the elevator dings and the doors open to two wagons carrying covered plates. There's a man in a nice suit with them who wordlessly dishes the plates out, then vanishes again. It's soup, a nice mild carrot and sweet potato one, followed by a salad, the main course and dessert. Steve's plate, TJ notes, is generally piled higher than theirs, too deliberate to not be on purpose. It's thoughtful and it makes TJ feel better about being here, when he hadn't even been feeling not good about being here in the first place. It's just nice to know that they have Steve's needs in mind without making a big or really any sort of deal out of it.

Overall, it's a nice evening filled with conversation not about work. TJ gets to talk a bit to everyone, a good opportunity to get to know them as people. Even Natasha, who it turns out is nice to talk to. Turns out she likes fast cars – anything that goes fast, but cars the most – and they talk a bit about his, the cars they each got to drive, and somehow Tony manages to involve himself as well. Overall, TJ books the evening as a complete success, but by the time they finally make it onto Steve's floor he's exhausted.

"Yeah," Steve agrees without TJ even needing to say anything. "Me too." He slings one arm around TJ's waist and pulls him into the bedroom.

"What a day, huh," he sighs a bit later, once they're in bed, lights turned off and floor to ceiling windows darkened.

What a day indeed. Humming in agreement, TJ curls more into Steve, carefully puts his hand on his hip in lieu of wrapping his arm around him like he wants to. "Good, though."

"Yeah," Steve agrees, low and a bit slurred, and TJ closes his eyes.


	11. What really matters

If TJ thought the previous day was busy, the next day is certainly more so. After a nice breakfast during which he finally remembers to inform Steve of tonight's dinner with Anne, which results in them inviting her over since it makes the most sense, he signs the contract Pepper gave him after discussing the terms with the lawyers. There are some amendments they recommend – a minimum and maximum of how much work he's required to do, keeping his mental health in mind – that Pepper accepts without batting an eyelash and without even discussing in turn with her lawyers. A rewriting and a couple of signatures later he's officially employed. In celebration he gets to meet the PR team, Amelia and Daniel, both highly qualified and experienced, of course. Somehow they still listen to everything he has to say like what he's saying actually has merit, and then they seriously discuss things with him. With Pepper too, of course, but unlike him she's actually qualified. She's done PR work for Tony for fifteen years.

They spend a lot of time strategizing. Pepper has to leave at one point to do her actual job – now that TJ thinks about it, she has really put a lot of time aside for this, especially considering she's the _CEO_ of _Stark Industries_ – and TJ, Amelia and Daniel continue discussing options. The two of them have done what TJ hasn't (due to lack of time, granted) and give him detailed accounts of what the public has to say on each member of the Avengers. He in turn relies to them the things that aren't in the questionnaires – for example that Steve and him are an item, that Natasha and Clint, he suspects, are one too, and that Bruce can do one challenging interview just to have done one, but generally they should keep him away from that sort of thing. So the decision is made that Steve and Tony will spearhead the Avengers and do the most PR work, and they also agree that Natasha should stick with Steve as often and as much as possible, both because her image needs a lot of polishing and to remind people that Captain America trusts her.

They work through lunch, eating a delivered meal that TJ is pretty sure came from Tony's personal chef, and continue their planning. The press conference is scheduled for the next day, so they develop a plan for that, too; Daniel and Amelia are already working with Tony's PR people to figure out which journalists to invite, but this has to be coordinated with what sorts of interviews the individual Avengers will give over the next weeks. There are plenty of requests, but it takes a lot of research and background checks to figure out who would best be interviewed by whom and who would look better in which magazine. In this area TJ has some expertise, but again, his experience lies more with politics and he learns more than he contributes in this area.

It's decided that it will be TJ's job to inform the team of the press conference and remind them to keep their answers in the questionnaire at the forefront of their minds, though not to recount them verbatim if possible. He also is the one to tell them that they have a meeting early tomorrow, the Avengers team with the PR team, to prepare for the press conference. Seems like he is to be the connection point between the two teams.

In the afternoon, once they've discussed everything with Pepper, they finally call it a day after several hours of intense work. It was tiring, but TJ is surprised at how exhausted he doesn't feel.

Still, he's very glad to finally get to return to Steve who was fast to reply to all of TJ's texts but not so eager to tell TJ what exactly he was doing. Right now he's back in his living room though, TJ knows that much.

When he gets there Steve is alone and he could very well have spent all day on the sofa, but if he had there would be no reason to be reluctant to say as much. He beams when TJ steps out of the elevator, though, so TJ isn't worried. They don't owe each other reports on how they spend every hour of every day.

"Hey." Returning the smile, he drops down on the cushions next to Steve and leans in for a hello kiss that somehow turns into a lot more than that. It's not TJ's fault, Steve's lips are just so soft and he's so sweet and TJ is still convinced that he could spend the majority of his time with his mouth on Steve and spend his life happy that way. And okay, maybe TJ is a bit elated because of how Amelia and Daniel treated him, like he was a professional like them, not making him feel like a tag-along or little more than the messenger between PR team and Avengers. And Steve is getting better and they're going to fix things, and really the danger is over, Steve is fine. Perhaps it's only sinking in now, but knowing that soon they'll be able to completely move on from the couple of days where Steve was a fugitive and TJ didn't know about his whereabouts is wonderful.

And Steve is wonderful too, of course.

"Good day?" Steve asks when they pull apart, barely breathless.

"You know it was," TJ replies, only slightly petulant because he is certainly breathing a bit more heavily. This no sex thing is really putting him on a hair trigger, especially with Steve right there. "What I would like to know is what you have been up to all day. Unless you don't want to tell me. That's okay."

"Well." Steve ducks his head a little. "It's not a big secret or anything, I just... well you know how Bruce is a doctor? A medical one I mean, turns out Tony is a doctor too, just not that kind. Well I asked them to check me out. Tony has a lot of medical equipment, I'm not sure I want to know why. But anyways, I got a clean bill of health, the cuts are healing nicely and the bruises are deep but healing along well too. Nothing broken, ribs a little cracked but no permanent damage, everything well on its way to healing. So. That's all."

TJ blinks once, twice. He's not sure what to say; all he knows is he feels very relieved. Of course he wishes Steve had done this a couple of days ago, but knowing that it's an actual issue for Steve, this was a big step for him to take.

Slowly, a smile takes over his face. "Good. That's good. I'm glad to know that." Steve didn't have to do that, especially with already knowing that he was healing. Not being in acute danger anymore probably made it even more difficult for him, considering the nature of what kind of hurdle this is for Steve. "Thank you. It was very sweet of you to do that."

"No it wasn't," Steve immediately disagrees, reaching out to take TJ's hand, twining their fingers. Looking down at them he continues, "I should have done this days ago. I should have thought of you, at least. I don't know why this is such a big problem for me, I just... before the serum, I hated having to see a doctor. I dreaded it because there was always something wrong with me, and half the time I couldn't afford to anyway, and the rest of the time I couldn't afford the medicine they prescribed. I don't know, I just... I guess back then I would rather not have known, so long as I was feeling okay enough. And with the serum, no injury so far has done any permanent damage, or even lasted all that long. I don't know."

"Maybe this is something you can discuss with a therapist some day," TJ suggests as gently as he can. He does think it would be good for Steve to see a therapist, mostly because Steve himself mentioned more than once that he probably should, but so far Steve hasn't managed to actually go through with it. Knowing from personal experience that there's absolutely no point trying to force him when he isn't ready, TJ tries not to push. But sometimes, in a situation like this, he'll bring it up, just so Steve will keep it in mind as an option. Never when Steve is actually vulnerable though, like after a nightmare or when he gets into a mood, goes silent and withdrawn.

"I probably should," Steve agrees a little wryly, one corner of his mouth curling up.

Returning the smile, TJ lets it rest. "So, what are you up to right now?"

"Nothing much," Steve shrugs. "Why, you got any plans? When is Anne coming over?"

"Eight. Not plans, per se, but... well. What are your thoughts on social media?"

One of Steve's eyebrows goes up. "Work?"

Actually... "Well... yes. It was just something I was thinking, social media accounts – twitter, primarily, but instagram is good too, maybe facebook, though the latter these days is generally maintained by publicists rather than the person themselves. They're good for interaction with fans, and they make people feel closer to you. They also help people see you as a person rather than a figure, which... of the whole team, you probably need the most."

"Captain America throws a large shadow," Steve comments, brows furrowed as he thinks about it. "I know what they are, you have accounts, but... how much work does this take? Actually I'm pretty sure I'll forget about this, so how bad is it if I only do something with this every two weeks or whenever I remember?"

"Well, that depends. For instagram you can prepare in advance – that's what I do. Take a couple of pictures, plan a couple of posts, spread them out until your supply runs low. Spontaneous pictures are good too, but you can put those in the queue as well. It's always good to have a queue though. You could hire somebody to do this for you – twitter, too. Twitter is a bit less easy to plan in advance for, but it's okay if you leave it to a couple of tweets a week and a couple of replies to people. The purpose of these are so people see you have a daily life, that you drink coffee at Starbucks, that you cook eggs for breakfast, that you like music, things like that. It might seem mundane, but it can be very effective and is actually exactly what you need. I'm not talking you into anything here, am I, Steve? You can say no – I mean, you can always say no to me, but you should say it especially when I'm talking to you as your PR consultant rather than your boyfriend." With that new thought occurring, TJ frowns thoughtfully at Steve, who is listening attentively but silently. This isn't something TJ considered – that it would have an impact on their relationship. But of course it would. They definitely need to talk about that, soon.

At the question, Steve shakes his head and smiles. "I know. You're not talking me into anything, darling, I just never really thought about it – I'll consider it, okay?"

"Of course," TJ quickly agrees, but he still feels like he needs to make this perfectly clear. "Just... as boyfriends we're equal but as your PR consultant I'm an advisor but you make the decisions. Okay? Let's keep that in mind."

Steve frowns. "I'll still discuss things with you, though. Especially when things affect you as my boyfriend. A lot of what I do has an impact on you too."

This is true. "True, but still. I'd rather we make a clear distinction, I don't really want to end up discussing work things at the dinner table." Like it's the norm at his mother's table, and his dad's. It happens when both partners work in the same profession or work together, TJ knows, and he doesn't want it. That's something he didn't consider until now, but working for or with Steve will probably have to entail them drawing some clear lines. The last thing TJ wants is to end up like his parents, whose relationship is so entwined in politics and their political lives that one has a hard time existing without the other. Maybe they're happy that way, but TJ wasn't, and that's not what he wants for his relationship with Steve.

And Steve, of course, realizes this without TJ even having to explain or say anything. His face softens and he nods, cups TJ's jaw with one hand and leans in for a quick kiss. "Of course, darling. We'll make some rules, okay? And the first one is, no work talk at the dinner table or any time after dinner. Good?"

They've talked about this often enough, TJ supposes, so it probably wasn't a difficult conclusion to draw. Still he feels warmed that Steve knows him and his anxieties well enough that they don't even need to talk about them, Steve will find a way to circumvent them without TJ needing to explain.

"Okay," TJ agrees happily.

Steve returns his smile. "We'll be okay," he says, and TJ believes him.

They settle into the sofa and talk about how their days have been, more detailed accounts than they gave via text, and while nothing exciting happened it's still nice, sitting there and talking about nothing of consequence. Life is slowly starting to feel normal again, TJ realizes, or whatever their new normal will be. For the next couple of weeks they'll probably have to stay in New York, and TJ isn't sure yet how that's going to work out practically, what with his therapist being in DC and all. But they'll figure something out, he's sure of it.

Dinner they spend with Anne, who looks happy to see them and doesn't comment on their change of address or anything else and spends most of the time making them laugh with descriptions of the silly demands her clients make. Just to tease Doug, the three of them take a selfie that Anne sends Doug and that TJ puts in his "maybe" folder for instagram. It's the first picture of Steve in it, and after that little realization, TJ goes to bed with his mind full of ideas for pictures he can take with Steve now – or soon, anyway, once they're public.

It's the next day that TJ expects for things to truly get stressful. They have that meeting early in the morning, rehashing everything one last time before the press conference at eleven. Daniel and Amelia are there, but after a brief introduction they settle with having TJ do most of the talking. Pepper is there too, so he isn't doing it alone, at least; he feels more confident and more like he knows what he's doing with her standing next to him. Her, all of them respect, and because she respects him they respect him as well, or at least appear to.

The press conference itself... well. TJ has been to his fair share of press conferences, either present as an active member or behind the scenes, and watched even more on screen, witnessed them being discussed beforehand and endlessly rehashed after. This one he'd rate as not the worst he's been witness to, but certainly not the best either.

It's not a long press conference, deliberately so. As planned, Steve and Tony do most of the talking, expressing several important points – their involvement with SHIELD and HYDRA, where the Avengers as a group stand legally and personally, where they stand on the matter of the things their members have done. Then they promise to do some interviews before opening up to questions, which is where the other Avengers get to speak a couple of times as well. The general tone of the questions varies between provocative and generic, and before opening up Steve limited the range of what type of question they would answer. Since they're not any kind of authority, officially, any questions towards the investigation get deflected right away. They were prepped thoroughly, so when the topic comes up the first time (despite the earlier set limitation) Steve gives a good soundbite on how he's sure the appropriate authorities are doing their best and of course the Avengers will cooperate as best they can. Nobody inquires about TJ's presence, who's standing clearly visible with Pepper to one side, but they didn't expect that right now anyway. When the times is up Pepper steps up, gives the official Avengers Team contact details and they all leave.

"Good," TJ says when they all shuffle into the elevator that will take them from the lobby of the tower up again.

"Well done," Pepper adds. "All of you."

"Didn't do much except stand there and look pretty," Barton grumbles.

"Which is exactly what we needed you to do for now," Pepper returns.

"Solidarity," TJ reminds him; they've mentioned this before. "On every photo of the conference they'll see you as a team rather than individuals who sometimes work together, which is what we want for them to see." Especially for Bruce and Natasha, whose standing is the most precarious right now. Not that any of them are doing too well.

"I know, I know," Barton sighs, waving them off. "I'm just not used to... being seen, I guess."

"Best get used to it fast," Tony announces. "And next time, you'll get a speaking role."

At the prospect Barton doesn't look any more enthusiastic.

They all have lunch on their own, everybody needing some time to decompress after the intense scrutiny; TJ and Steve eat and then have a bath in the huge tub in the bathroom, jacuzzi setting on and, combined with the silky hot water, doing its best to massage the tension out of their bodies. Steve is a bit broody, gone quiet from all the attention, but he keeps touching TJ not quite absent-mindedly, hands gentle but steady on his body.

After just a couple of minutes in the tub TJ has to fight the urge to climb between Steve's legs and lean back against his chest, let Steve fold his arms around him and just hold him. There's nothing TJ wants more right now than that, but he remembers starkly how Steve had said his ribs were almost broken, and all the super strength in the world doesn't make TJ any lighter. So he has to content himself with taking Steve's hand, tangling their fingers and squeezing periodically just to remind Steve that he's still there, getting a squeeze back each time.

They don't talk, but when they leave the bathroom two hours after entering it TJ feels more relaxed than he has after two full days of spa week-ends.

Which is a good thing, because TJ has an actual job to do. Namely: meeting up in the afternoon with Amelia, Daniel and Pepper to discuss the immediate impact and reactions to the press conference, plus rehashing how it went in the way TJ is all too familiar with. Based on the first incoming feedback they amend yesterdays preliminary decisions and make a few definite agreements on what types of interviews the individual members are going to make. They also decide to hire a couple of people who'll advise them on what clothes to wear, because while TJ can keep track of Steve and Pepper of Tony, the PR team is too busy to make clothing selections for every member for every occasion that is to come.

After they wrap up in the evening, Pepper rides the elevator up together with TJ, and just before he gets off on Steve's floor she tells him that she's glad she hired him and that he's a great addition to the team. Consequently, TJ walks a bit on air when he finds Steve in one of the spare rooms.

"Do you think this would be good as a studio?" Steve asks him as he holds out his hand for TJ to take. Then he pulls TJ close and kisses him hello, gentle but not overly careful, deep and familiar. His free hand cups TJ's face and nobody has ever made TJ feel as precious and treasured as Steve does, much less with such a seemingly simple gesture. When they pull apart Steve returns TJ's smile and touches his thumb to TJ's lower lip. "You look happy."

"Yeah," TJ agrees, not surprised even though he feels like he should be. Then again... no. He has everything he needs and more importantly, he has everything he wants, including a fair share of things he never thought he'd get to have. And yet he'd give all of it up in a heartbeat for this man, and he wouldn't ever regret it. "I am."

He leans in for another kiss.


	12. Epilogue

Tony and Clint are bickering as they climb into the limo, but Steve is ignoring them and TJ, frankly, doesn't care. Right now he's feeling mellow and relaxed which, considering that in about half an hour he'll be on the bad end of a press frenzy, is a miracle and entirely attributable to Steve's abilities at distraction.

Or, well. There's probably a better way to put it, because TJ sure hopes that when Steve has to distract someone in the field, it won't involve removing all their clothes and putting his lips and tongue to their skin, soft and sweet for _hours_ until they'll be sobbing with relief when he finally deigns to touch so much as their nipples.

Just the nipples. That's all it took; TJ was so keyed up by that point that he came just from that. And while he lay there, dazed and breathless and stunned, Steve had licked the come off him and then informed him that he wasn't done yet, not at all.

By the time he was... well, there's a reason TJ is a little dreamy right now, something which already made Natasha and Tony smirk at him. All he'd had the energy and will to do was smile back at them, which probably didn't help much.

"Come on, sweetheart," Steve nudges gently and helps TJ get into the limo. The bench at the far end of it has been left free for them, partly courtesy, partly because this whole outing has been carefully planned down to the order in which they'll get out of the limo upon arrival. They were all involved in the planning for once, something that hasn't been the norm so far. In the three weeks since the initial press conference there haven't been many appointments for the team as a whole – they of course attended the service, a sort of joint public funeral to mourn the lives lost at the Triskelion, and a week ago there was the big charity gala, hastily organized to obtain funds to help pay for damages. Other than that, there have been a lot of individual appointments, interviews and appearances and what have you, so the PR team split the responsibilities up; TJ is responsible for Bruce and Clint, Amelia for Steve, Pepper for Tony and Daniel for Natasha. They'll still have meetings several times in the week to coordinate, but if it isn't a team event, this is mostly to keep everyone up to date rather than to get involved with somebody else.

For TJ, it's a bit strange still. He went from having zero professional responsibilities to having a pretty much full-time job rather fast, but Clint and Bruce are the easiest to handle, PR-wise. TJ would've preferred handling Steve, but he understands conflict of interest and besides, pretty soon Amelia will be handling him as well.

"Wait, wait, I got a good one: _Not Who We Thought He Was: How Captain America Let Down His Country_ ," Tony reads out, loud enough to capture TJ's attention. "Guess who."

"FoxNews, that one was easy." Clint rolls his eyes and whips out his phone as well to announce, "Hashtags #OperationCapsBF and #CongratsCap still trending worldwide, according to the NY Times. How long has it been, twenty hours?"

"Twenty-two," Pepper corrects absently. She's looking at her phone as well, but TJ bets she isn't trolling twitter for funny reaction tweets about Steve's appearance on the Daily Show yesterday.

Not to be distracted, Tony keeps scrolling through twitter; his grin promises nothing pleasant. "Wait, get this: @USAlovr45: I LOVE HOMOSEXUALITY."

Everybody starts to laugh, Pepper included; even TJ can't suppress a giggle. Yeah, he kinda loves homosexuality too.

Steve just sighs. "Guys. Can we stop? I thought we made a deal."

"The deal was until dinner," Tony replies, zero remorse. He's having way too much fun with this, but at least it's good-natured. Today Steve and TJ still had the luxury of ignoring the public reaction and backlash what with Amelia handling their publicity, but tomorrow their little break will be over. Tonight, really; the second TJ steps out of the car and wanders the red carpet on Steve's arm, the really not very hidden secret of the identity of Steve's boyfriend will be blown wide open. Technically Steve was supposed to do it yesterday, tell Jon Stewart who his boyfriend is if the question was asked, but instead Steve had shrugged and asked, "Can't you guess?" with a smirk curling one corner of his mouth. It was charming, but also accidentally set the internet on fire. Twitter almost broke.

In his defense, Steve had honestly thought they'd been really obvious because while they hadn't skipped down any sidewalks while holding hands, they hadn't gone out of their way to hide either. If Stewart had asked more questions Steve probably would've just told him, but somehow it hadn't happened and now they're on their way to another charity gala and TJ is going to be blinded by camera flashes the second he gets out of the limo. One of the reasons why he'll be last to get out.

"No wait, this one's good," Clint interrupts before Steve can try to extend the ceasefire further. "@zanykitty says, _Jesus christ on a popsicle stick, if his bf is Thor I will cartwheel into the sun & die_."

"Same," TJ blurts, entirely on accident, but come on. He's seen good pictures of Thor now, he and Steve together would be a Grecian daydream come to life.

"TJ," Steve huffs and taps his fingers against TJ's upper arm. He's got his arm around TJ's shoulders which is nice, comfy and protective and TJ still feels cuddly enough to just lean into Steve and rest his head on his chest, nevermind the company, but the conversation is starting to draw TJ in nevertheless. Public relations, reactions, he's interested in this sort of thing – often he hates it, especially the nasty side of it, but it can be interesting and entertaining too. The day-time shut-down of talking about any of this had been for his benefit as well as Steve's, but after a whole day without checking any of his normal daily sites TJ is starting to get curious despite himself.

"Listen up, I've found the best reaction," Natasha declares. "@abbie_mills1, this is hilarious. Chronological order: _Daughter is crying upstairs. Went 2 comfort her but it was tears of joy. Says she'll send congrats via fanmail #21stCenturyParenting_." They all "awww" in unison while Steve huffs and flushes. Natasha sends him a quick and continues reading out loud: " _update: daughter on conference call w friends, may damage her vocal chords. And my ears. Dunno how hubby can sleep through that. #DailyShow_. Next one just reads, _no dear daughter mine, u cannot stay home from school tomorrow._ And the last one is why I think if Clint and I had a normal life, that'd be him. All caps, _UPDATE: HUBBY WOKE UP & THEYRE BOTH SCREAMING AT EACH OTHER LIKE TEENAGE GIRLS._ And: _PS: Only one of them is a teenage girl_."

That has everybody snickering, except for Clint, who's too busy grinning wide, face red. He leans in to whisper something in Natasha's ear that has her laugh, the deep, throaty kind, and throw him a look through her eyelashes before she focuses back on her phone. Clint for his part looks smugly satisfied and returns to his phone as well. Well, Natasha has just told him in a roundabout way that she'd marry him and have kids with him, he gets to be a bit smug.

They've come a long way in less than a month, TJ muses absently, fondly. When they all arrived in New York, nobody was even sure if Clint and Natasha were together and now they're openly flirtatious in the team's presence. It's sweet, and after everything they've been through, the whole backslash of their but especially Natasha's history becoming public knowledge, they deserve a bit of sweet.

Suddenly Clint bursts out laughing. " _Gay Wedding of the Century: Captain Rogers & @TonyStark About to Elope?_ Look, they've got pictures and everything!" He holds out his phone to show them the pictures attached to an article from, surprise, FoxNews. One is from the press conference where Tony was leaning in to murmur something into Steve's ear that made Steve suppress a smile. It's the typical sort of picture the press would use to claim there's a type of intimacy where it isn't.

Okay, TJ takes it back, Clint doesn't deserve any sweetness. He deserves a cold shower.

"Ew," Tony makes. "No offense, Steve, but... ew. I'm pretty sure my dad had a crush on you, that's disgusting."

Now it's Steve's turn to grimace. "No offense, Tony, but ew."

Right, that's it. TJ's going to fight back. He whips out his own phone and opens twitter for the first time in a full twenty-four hours; a new record for him, he's pretty sure. When Steve sends him a look of betrayal he presses a quick kiss to his cheek, winks, and then reads out a pretty perfect thing that pops up in first spot as soon as he goes to the #OperationCapsBF hashtag. "Uh-oh, Clint, I got bad news for you: _enraged roommate just bet me 60 bucks Cap lied to cover up his affair w/ Black Widow so he wont get shanked by the archer._ Follow-up: _in other news I will soon be rich, thank u america #OperationCapsBF_."

At least now Clint is at the receiving end of some ribbing while Natasha winks and makes kissy faces at Steve.

"This one is one of my favorites," Pepper speaks up suddenly, and turns out perhaps she was scrolling through twitter after all. " _BREAKING: Captain Rogers Updates Relationship Status, Crashes Twitter Servers_. It's so sarcastic."

Curious, TJ leans towards her and she tilts her screen at him so he can see that it's a tweet by the NYTimes. He actually likes it a lot too, and after a brief second of hesitation, he decides to retweet it. Doesn't matter much anymore anyway, does it? It'll be like being outed while his dad was president all over again, except this time with more modern media. Everything he says and does and has done in the past will be analyzed to bits all over again.

Not a pleasant prospect, but TJ doesn't have any regrets, no hesitation. He's thought it all through and made this decision with open eyes, fully aware of the consequences in a way probably not many people would be. But it's worth it.

Steve is worth everything.

Content with that, TJ closes the app and locks his phone, slips it into his pocket while he snuggles up to Steve again, tuning out as the others continue to read out tweets to each other. It makes Steve look at him, smile that smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes, warm and happy. And Steve is; TJ didn't realize, to be fair because Steve was careful not to pressure him, just how much Steve wanted this. Being open, not trying to hide or lie even just by remaining silent. His privacy is important to him and he'll protect their private space, but there's a line between being protective and hiding and TJ thinks that today, they're going to cross it.

It's not a thought that makes him apprehensive, not anymore. After the stress of the Triskelion incident, Steve's injuries and the PR planning let off a little he sat himself down and thought it all through one more time, just to make sure his decision to "come out", as it were, wasn't an immediate reaction to the legitimate fear of losing Steve. But even if it had been, he'd been sure and is sure now that it's the right thing to do for himself, for Steve and for their relationship.

It won't always be fun. After dying down lately, his fame will rise again to possibly new heights, but TJ thinks they can do it. He's an adult now and it was his decision to do this. He has Steve by his side all the way, and he has a support network in the form of his family and even Steve's team, who he thinks he can count among his friends. He can do this – _they_ can do this.

The limo rolls to a stop at the end of the red carpet, and the frenzy of camera flashlights starts already even though all there is to see yet is a black limousine. Tony drops his phone in his pocket and wriggles his eyebrows at them all. "It's showtime!" Then he knocks against the window and the driver opens the door to him. To a barrage of questions being shouted at them already, Tony gets out of the limo and then turns around, offers first Pepper and then Bruce a hand to help them out of the car, and then he offers his elbows to them and accompanies them further down the carpet with the ease of long experience. Natasha is next to get out of the limo, holding her hand out to Clint the same way Tony offered his aid to Bruce and Pepper, and then offers her elbow to him in the same gesture as well. TJ can't help but wonder if she's mocking Tony or pretending to, but really copying him because she's nervous.

"Our turn," Steve announces, but instead of getting out of the limo he gently grabs TJ's chin, leans in to press a soft kiss to his lips.

He doesn't ask TJ again if he's ready. There's no need to, they've talked about it extensively, but TJ loves him a little more for not treating TJ like he's fragile, like he's doubting TJ made this decision with a sound mind. Instead he smiles at him, sweet and gentle, and then climbs out of the limo.

Immediately, the flashes and screaming get even louder, but Steve turns his back on all of them, holds out his hand to TJ.

TJ puts his hand in Steve's and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And because I accidentally lied about the number of chapters, have the last two all in one go. Credit for the tweets goes to [dayari](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dayari), without whose support I'd probably have been lost.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this 'verse! There might be a one-shot here or there coming, but I make no promises (though I do take prompts), but the main story is now finished.


End file.
